The Ultimate March Madness Upset: How UMBC Shocked the World and Made NCAA History!
Story by Mitchell Smith
It’s that time of the year again, March Madness. With last minute buzzer beaters, blood, sweat, and tears the games have been filled with excitement and emotions from some of the youngest stars in the world. So many analytics always make it easy (LOL) to fill out the NCAA bracket of 68 teams. For many years the number 1 seeds never lost. There were a few close calls but top teams figure out a way to win. This was one of the most coveted stats up until 2018 when the 16 seed UMBC Retrievers not only defeated the 1 seed Virginia but pounded them into the floor 74-54. This is the programs biggest achievement as they would loose the next game to K-State. Nevertheless they made history, but how did they do it.
This was before the portal and a small school like this wasn’t pulling in 5 star players, so how. This is the wonder of the tournament, David vs Goliath, anything can happen. So basically as a coach from Sunday Night to Thursday or Friday you have time to look at your opponent, figure out who are the best players and how that team plays, teach it to your kids and the rest is just letting them go play. Maybe Virginia didn’t take the tournament or UMBC serious, maybe they just had a bad night, maybe they were over seated. There are so many factors to look at. Maybe UMBC had the game of their life, or maybe they were better than Virginia all together. Regardless they pulled off history and will always be the first 16 seed to win.
There is only one other team to accomplish this, Fairleigh Dickson who defeated Purdue in 2023. Purdue would make the finals the following year only to loose to UConn. I went out to the bar the night of the Virginia upset. Syracuse must have been playing that night and being a rival the whole bar was cheering the whole game for UCMB. When they had dismantled them and the game was in full control the bar was still in full cheering mode due to the fact that we had been beat so many times by Virginia and in the back of our minds this was some sort of redemptions for all the years we lost. Overall this was a feat for the times and like everything , goes down in history only to slowly fade until someone like me brings it up. Have a great week everyone and may your team win! Bring on the big dance.
