Sometimes it’s about perspective.

We’re two days from March, the pinnacle of the high-stress, low-reward season that consumes college basketball. Practically every team leaves the month on a losing note, as reality collides with the fantasy of a miracle run through the bracket.

It can leave a sour taste from an otherwise magical season. Just the madness, they say.

Sometimes we need to take a step back before heartbreak season arrives. Maybe we shouldn’t take any wins for granted.

Andre Williams and Caleb Brunson don’t.

The broadcast team for Mississippi Valley State delivered that frame of reference Monday night. They weren’t sweating out seeding as the Delta Devils faced Prairie View A&M.

Where the nation focuses on the top end of the college basketball spectrum, MVSU has been quietly toiling on the other. It entered Monday night with the most demoralizing record imaginable.

They were 0-27.

Twenty seven games, twenty seven losses.

That’s what made Game 28 so special — a moment captured by pure joy of two grad student broadcasters.

Where a 57-51 MVSU win typically wouldn’t register too far outside of tiny Itta Bena, Mississippi, Williams and Brunson took it national.

“THAT’S GAME!” they shouted as the buzzer sounded in a now-viral video. “THAT WOULD BE GAME! FIRST WIN! OH, WE’RE STORMING THE COURT!”

To be fair, a few dozen fans spilled onto the floor. This wasn’t a Wake Forest moment, but nobody told Williams and Brunson. The unharnessed exuberance carried the weight of an event more akin to a title bout than a Monday night in the middle of Mississippi.

This is a call that’s been viewed north of 1.4 million times as of Tuesday evening on Twitter. ESPN’s SportsCenter account on Instagram (followed by 38.5 million users) also posted the clip. It received more than 100,000 favorites.

“THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY STATE DELTA DEVILS ARE CURRENTLY ON A ONE-GAME WINNING STREAK,” they said over shots of the handshake line. “… THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY STATE DELTA DEVILS IMPROVE TO 1-27, 1-14 IN THE SWAC.”

Just genuine excitement.

There wasn’t an ounce of cynicism.

Reached by phone Tuesday afternoon, the broadcast team was still enjoying the moment while prepping for midterms.

“It was just a moment we’ve been waiting for,” Williams told AL.com. “For anybody who watches us, they know we bring energy.”

That’s certainly true. They’ve gone viral before with their non-traditional take on play-by-play. The Birmingham Squadron of the NBA G-League noticed and invited the two to call a game last season. But their passion is for MVSU sports, regardless of audience or on-court success.

“A lot of the games have been kinda heartbreaking to see them go out and perform the way they have,” Brunson said. “That’s why last night was so sweet.”

Context is important here.

Outside of an overtime loss to Pacific in late November, most of these weren’t competitive. A 21-point beating from SWAC rival Texas Southern (12-14) preceded Monday night’s visit from a 10-18 Panther team.

At a certain point, it becomes a battle with the human condition. Nick Saban often spoke about the tendency to relax and allow satisfaction to steal the mental edge when the train was chugging down the tracks. Well, MVSU was dealing with the opposite.

This is a Mississippi Valley State that’s been at the bottom of Division I basketball since former Kentucky star Sean Woods led the program to a 21-13 record and the NCAA tournament in 2011-12 before leaving for Morehead State.

They haven’t won more than 9 games in a season since. In the previous five seasons, a 6-26 record was the high-water mark in 2018-19. Former NBA champion Lindsey Hunter went 7-75 in three years lading the program from 2019-22.

A 5-27 record last season included four league wins lead into a brutal schedule this year.

That’s part of the reality for a program and athletics department that’s technically in the same division as the SEC powers but has nowhere near the resources.

The entire MVSU athletics department spent $4.04 million last year, according to USA Today’s financial database of college athletics departments. That’s less than half of what Saban was paid last season, but for an entire department.

That’s the lowest of all 232 Division I schools by a margin of nearly $800,000. Ohio State spent $225.7 million. Alabama: $195.9 million. Auburn: $151.6 million.

Again, MVSU operated on $4.04 million total — part of the troubling history of underfunded HBCUs.

So MVSU opened the season with contract games, essentially fundraisers had some well-funded heavyweights. It opened the season with losses at LSU (106-60), Oklahoma (82-43), UConn (87-53) and TCU (86-52). Later, it went to Baylor for a 107-48 loss followed a week later by a 50-point beating at San Francisco.

You get the point.

Mississippi Valley State played and lost 13 straight road games before its first home date came Jan. 6. That was a narrow 54-51 loss to Alabama State.

It went on from there, a battle with the human condition and to avoid an unfortunate list of recent teams who went winless. Grambling in 2012-13 was the last to go 0-for when it finished without a win in 28 games. NJIT went 0-29 in 2007-08 while Savannah State was 0-28 in 2004-05.

Mississippi Valley State won’t be joining that club. Not this year.

And while technically and mathematically still eligible to make an impossible run in the SWAC and NCAA tournaments, the Delta Devils likely hit their mountain top Monday night.

It was a moment memorialized by the two happiest broadcasters you’ve ever heard.

Their infectious response to their favorite 0-27 team becoming a 1-27 team offered just the right amount of perspective on the eve of madness.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.