
What’s the one sure thing about March Madness brackets, other than you’ll eventually lose to the 9-year-old daughter of your co-worker, who only chose teams with blue uniforms?
That one sure thing, until Friday night, was that a No. 1 seed would never lose to a No. 16. They might as well just hand out the NCAA men’s basketball brackets with the four No. 1 through No. 16 games marked as free spaces, like in bingo. Who’s ever going to be daring enough to pick a team with one of the tournament’s lowest seeds to defeat one of the No. 1s?
Let’s hope you did, because on Friday night, hell froze over, and March Madness lived up to its name. The No. 16 seeded Retrievers of University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC) stunned a nationwide audience and busted brackets all over the nation, beating the No. 1 seeded University of Virginia (UVA) 74-54.
This wouldn’t just be a 16 over a 1. It’s a 16 over the overall No. 1. It’s like a 109-yard kickoff return. Can never be topped.
— Seth Davis (@SethDavisHoops) March 17, 2018
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As CBS Sports reported, No. 16 seeds were 0-135 in the history of the tournaments against No. 1 seeds. No longer. There are no more perfect brackets remaining after this upset, so at least we’re all in the same sinking boat.
And as the brackets burned, Twitter users sank some pretty good jokes and memes.
University of Millions of Brackets Crushed
— Theresa (@GertieTheDino89) March 17, 2018
ESPN says 579,666 brackets chose #UMBC. It goes as follows:
The university president: 1
Players: 12
Players’ moms: 12
UMBC students and alums: 100,000
People that said “awww the Retrievers!” and chose the dog school: 479,641— Jeffrey Boxer (@jeffboxer) March 17, 2018
“I felt a great disturbance in the Brackets, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something historic has happened.” #UMBC pic.twitter.com/WDjDOUzqyq
— J Calhoun (@J_Calhoun) March 17, 2018
UMBC’s dog mascot was especially pup-ular.
I can’t believe “UMBC Retrievers” is a real program and not the plucky college that breaks all the rules by giving a scholarship to Air Bud
— Jason O. Gilbert (@gilbertjasono) March 17, 2018
Really want UMBC to win because
1. Madness
2. I’m really enjoying all of these dog gifs #retrievers— Molly McGrath (@MollyAMcGrath) March 17, 2018
UMBC is allowed to deliver a few good slams at those who didn’t believe in them. Give their social-media person a raise, or at least a nice golden retriever puppy.
We’re up 12 on Virginia with 4:07 left, but more importantly we heard their may be some cookies left in the media dining area, will report back soon
— UMBC Athletics (@UMBCAthletics) March 17, 2018
We’re up 17 with 3:29 to go thanks to a Lamar three, BUT the media dining is out of cookies and this is the worst day ever
— UMBC Athletics (@UMBCAthletics) March 17, 2018
It’s v v loud in here, either cuz they just restocked the hot dogs or because we are up 45-29 with 11:39 to go
— UMBC Athletics (@UMBCAthletics) March 17, 2018
Second Half about to start, no matter what happens we just want you all to remember……we are conveniently located just outside of Baltimore and have stellar academics
— UMBC Athletics (@UMBCAthletics) March 17, 2018
C’MON GUYS, you crashed our dang website, our IT people wanna watch the game too, please form an orderly line
— UMBC Athletics (@UMBCAthletics) March 17, 2018
But hey, next year we won’t waste time carefully choosing each winner. We’ll just go heads-or-tails.
Pick up the remains of your battered bracket, because the NCAA men’s basketball tournament runs through April 2.
