Scott Van Pelt’s SportsCenter at the Xfinity Center

The energy was palpable.

Security guards were on high alert while fans in the stands couldn’t hold their jubilation.

Melo Trimble, the game’s high point man, alongside his fellow Maryland Terrapin teammates beat Georgetown in a barnburner that was too close for comfort. It was a spectacle no one had seen for 22 years filled with all the characteristics of an action-packed film.

But now the real show was about to begin. A nationally televised recruiting pitch about the greatness College Park exemplifies hosted by one of the school’s most beloved alum – Scott Van Pelt.

This was a moment Van Pelt couldn’t have foreseen while attending Maryland basketball games with his father as a kid.

“My father passed away when I was in school and so he obviously didn’t live to see any of this happen and just the idea that his son would someday host a television show that has a logo that’s supposed to be his bald head, and that they would take the desk for that show and plop it on the middle of the floor and that people would stay and chant his initials at him and treat him like a big shot, I don’t know what would’ve made my dad any prouder than that,” Van Pelt said in a phone interview late Thursday afternoon.

Between coach and player interviews, vignettes about various aspects of the University, old footage from the last time Maryland traded baskets with Georgetown and fan interaction; it could be said that there has never been any other hour of television filled with so much Maryland Pride in history.

Looking back, the Montgomery County native says that episode of SportsCenter by far was “the highlight of my professional life.”

“I’ve done really neat things and I’ve met really cool people and I’ve been really blessed beyond measure to get to do the things that I’ve gotten to do but if I never did another show again after that I’d be fine. There’s no words to describe what it meant to me to be home. I can’t stop thinking about how thankful I am that I got to.”

But the moment, which encapsulated it all, happened right before the show went on air.

Greivis Vasquez unexpectedly arrived at Xfinity Center to a hero’s welcome as the game was reaching a pivotal moment. Van Pelt, who was getting ready to put his IFB (earpiece which producers use to communicate with hosts) on for his post-game broadcast, was the first person Vasquez spotted as he entered the arena.

“So I get up and I’m walking over….and I look over and there’s my boy. Me and Greivis have this great friendship that dates back to his time at Maryland so he’s giving me a hug and everybody’s looking at us and then I’m like Jesus is this on the Jumbotron?” Van Pelt said.

Fans at Xfinity Center witnessed Vasquez and Van Pelt fist-bump and all of a sudden the game’s momentum shifted, eventually leading the Terps to clinch a win. Vasquez ended up being Van Pelt’s first guest in this unique on-the-road telecast that had never been done before. His popularity among Terrapin Nation despite leaving school in 2010 showed viewers across the country how much the school’s basketball program means to students and alumni.

From the moment this game was scheduled, Van Pelt knew he would be in College Park in some capacity saying, “I told my boss if he wanted me to do the show that night, I needed to be at the game. It needed to be from the game because I was going. I just wasn’t going to miss it. Thankfully they thought it was a good idea.”