IN ONE OF the greatest upsets in US sports history, the University of Maryland Baltimore County defeated top seed Virginia 74-54 Friday in a first-round game of the men’s college basketball tournament.
The first-ever victory by a 16th seed over an overall top seed after 135 consecutive National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournament losses left the UMBC Retrievers dancing for joy and leaping to slap hands with fans as the ran off the court in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“We just believed in each other and we came in with the mindset of working with each other,” said UMBC senior guard Jarius Lyles, who scored a game-high 28 points on 9-of-11 shooting.
The deflated Virginia players however wore shocked and saddened expressions.
The UMBC Athletics Twitter site sent dozens of messages as their team became a trending topic, including: “We won 24 games and a conference title, it’s not like we are a YMCA team, dude.”
“We just came out and dug in,” senior Retrievers guard Jourdan Grant said. “We made defense a priority all season and it paid off tonight.”
Call it Retriever Fever. They created Retriever Believers. And it will be UMBC that faces ninth-seeded Kansas State on Sunday in Charlotte for a berth in the NCAA’s famous “Sweet 16″ field.
I’m so proud,” said UMBC coach Ryan Odom. “I love seeing their smiles. They are great guys. They are high-character kids. They deserve it.”
“We got our butts whipped. That wasn’t even close,” Virginia coach Tony Bennett said. “We kept getting broken down. We did a poor job.
“We got outplayed. I don’t know what to say except that was a historic butt-whipping.”
UMBC’s greatest-ever college basketball upset drew instant comparisons to the most epic stunners in US sports history, including the US ice hockey victory over the Soviet Union in the 1980 Winter Olympics; Buster Douglas knocking out Mike Tyson for the undisputed heavyweight title in Tokyo in 1990; and the 16-7 victory of the NFL’s underdog New York Jets over the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl 3 in 1969.
We had a historic season and we made history becoming the first number one seed to lose,” Bennett said.
“It stings. But this is life. You can’t let it define you. You have to take the good times and bad times. When you step in the arena the consequences can be historic losses and great wins and you have to deal with it.”
While Virginia won the prestigious Atlantic Coast Conference tournament to finish 31-2 and leave the Cavaliers as the nation’s top-rated squad, the Retrievers only made the national tournament when Lyles sank a 3-pointer with 0.6 of a second to play to beat host Vermont 65-62 in the America East final and stand 24-10.
It was such an expected mismatch that UMBC was given a one percent oddsmakers’ chance of beating Virginia even when freshman star reserve DeAndre Hunter was lost for the NCAA tournament with a broken left wrist.
But after battling Virginia level 21-21 at half-time, the Retrievers outscored the Cavaliers 53-33 in the second half, pulling away well before the finish in humbling one of the nation’s top defensive teams.
Our defense is so much better than it was earlier this season,” Odom said. “We started making shots. We fought all the way and we just limped to the end because our guys were dead.”
Joe Sherburne scored 14 points while Arkel Lamar added 12 points and 10 rebounds, and K.J. Maura added 10 points.
“It was a dream come true,” Maura said.
The Retrievers outrebounded Virginia 33-25 and kept the Cavs to only 41.1 percent shooting, only 4-of-22 from 3-point range even as UMBC was 12-of-24 from beyond the arc.
UMBC players credited Odom with inspiring them. ”He made us believe in ourselves,” Grant said. “Made us believe we could do anything.”
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