Madness.
Pure madness.
The 2018 NCAA tournament was turned upside down on Friday night when UMBC -- that's the University of Maryland, Baltimore County for the less educated -- took down the number one seed Virginia Cavaliers 74-54.
That's right. History was made when a 16-seed took down a 1-seed.
135 of these matchups had been played without this happening before March 16, 2018. UMBC had never beaten a ranked team. Never, never, never.
Forget a Cinderella story. The Retrievers are now officially your favorite child, your best friend, your celebrity and for many of us, wreckers of brackets.
That March feeling 🙌#MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/zKr0kaoCTD— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) March 17, 2018
There's nowhere officially to go but down for the rest of this tournament.
Not because of the thousands of tourney pools that were ruined. How do you top the 16-seed taking down the 1-seed?
The Retrievers did it in fine fashion, shooting 68% from the field in the second half. They knocked down 12 three-pointers and shot 54.2% overall. UMBC played hard-nosed defense and made the plays when needed.
And Virginia didn't.
The Cavaliers were hoisting up 3's midway through the second half and down by 16. They were missing these shots, rushed attempts in effort to make up a deficit all on one trip down the court. It was UMBC playing like the more experienced team, the more confident team and it showed on the court.
Senior Jairus Myles scored 28 points, running on nearly fumes and fighting cramps the last five minutes. Three other starters found double digits in the scoring column.
One team likely has to pinch themselves to make sure it's not a dream while the other is stuck in nightmare.
Like it or not, it's very real and it's absolutely heaven. A heaven that will continue UMBC's season and a Sunday matchup with Kansas State, winners over Creighton earlier in the day.
And for Virginia, they'll take those few extra moments outside of their locker, head draped with a towel. Or they'll find extra minutes under the spray of a warm shower. They learned a hard lesson on Friday night: March is a cruel mistress. No doubt the loss will sting, it will hurt, but for 40 minutes of basketball on Friday night, the other team is in the visitor's locker room. Celebrating and hoping they can find enough sleep over the next two days to keep living their dream.
A dream that became reality.
Marshall Thundering Herd
Before UMBC entered the picture, the Thundering Herd of Marshall were the Cinderella story of the day.
Marshall, seeded 13, defeated the 4th-seed Wichita State Shockers 81-75, picking up their first-ever NCAA tourney win.
The game was back and forth in which both teams exchanged body blows, turnovers, and threes in an exciting matchup earlier in the afternoon. At the forefront of the battle were guards Jon Elmore of Marshall and Connor Frankamp of Wichita State. Both scored 27 points as both almost willed their team to victory.
In the end, Marshall made their free throws, helping them to advance to face West Virginia, easy winners over Murray State.
Missed free throws prevented the College of Charleston from making it 2 for 2 on 13 seeds over 4 seeds on the day. Charleston battled with the Auburn Tigers down to the wire, even led late, but a 1-4 stretch from the line ultimately led to a 62-58 Auburn victory.
Nevada Wolf Pack
The Nevada Wolf Pack vs Texas Longhorns game might have also been given heavy consideration for game of the day if not for UMBC.
Nevada won their first tourney game since 2007, defeating the Longhorns 87-83 in overtime.
The Wolf Pack was behind most of the game, but a furious rally behind Kendall Stephens and Caleb Martin helped Nevada win. Martin especially caught fire in overtime, scoring nine points in finally finding his stroke from the outside.
Stephens had 22 and Martin had 18. For Texas, Kerwin Roach and Matt Coleman combined for 51 points in an outstanding shooting effort.
Nevada will square off against the Cincinnati Bearcats, who knocked off Georgia State 68-53.
The best of the rest
There were other games today? Easy to forget after the UMBC victory late in the evening.
Xavier took care of business as a number one seed, beating Texas Southern 102-83.
Bucknell was involved in a very physical affair with Michigan State, giving the Spartans all they could handle before ultimately falling 82-78.
The North Carolina Tar Heels and Purdue Boilermakers each won handily, though Purdue lost Isaac Haas for the rest of the tournament with a fractured elbow.
Texas A&M, Butler (in an upset), Syracuse (same) and Clemson also won, while at the time of writing Florida State held a 15-point lead over Missouri with 14:16 left.
Onto the final 32, where starting Saturday berths for eight teams to advance to the sweet 16 will be on the line.
And for one team out of Maryland, they'll have one more day to enjoy their history.
Their madness.
photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org
For more thoughts as the tournament proceeds, be sure to follow on Twitter: @jasonrh_78
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