And on the 136th attempt, the basketball gods relented.
A No. 16 seed has finally beaten a No. 1 in the NCAA tournament. And even if you could see it coming somewhere, some time, in the future, it wasn’t supposed to be this.
College basketball has never seen a bigger upset than Maryland-Baltimore County 74, Virginia 54.
But it happened Friday night in the South Regional, taking down a team that just last week completed a golden 31-2 season with both the ACC regular season and conference tournament titles. And it was executed by team ranked 188th in the country according to the Ken Pomeroy efficiency ratings, a team that lost to the likes of Stony Brook and was beaten 44 points by Albany in the middle of its conference season.
It’s too improbable for words, except that it happened.
When UMBC was supposed to go away, it instead launched three-pointers. When most uber-longshots in the NCAA tournament get tight, the Retrievers instead went to the rim with reckless abandon.
And instead it was Virginia, a team that isn’t built for huge scoring spurts, that played with nervousness while the Retrievers’ confidence grew. What started as a cute little run — UMBC breaking a 21-all halftime tie with six straight points — became a five-alarm fire for Virginia as its deficit grew to seven, then eight, then 11 and then 14 remaining as senior guard Jairus Lyles stroked a three-pointer with 14:57 left.
Virginia practically caved in, never even threatening to come back. UMBC, from the America East Conference, kept swishing, kept celebrating and may never stop.
Sometimes, there’s no legitimate way to explain it.
How do you account for Lyles, a journeyman of VCU and Robert Morris before landing at UMBC, outplaying every guard on Virginia’s roster with 28 points?
How do you account for the Cavaliers shooting 4-of-22 from three-point range? How do you account for UMBC, which had the nation’s 212th-best offense this season and whose point guard K.J. Maura is generously listed at 5-8, 140 pounds, getting wide open looks all night against the nation’s best defense?
Sometimes, the force of a historic moment is more powerful than logic. It certainly felt that way on a Friday night that will never be forgotten.
Virginia was on the wrong end of the other "greatest upset in college basketball history" in 1982 when it lost to Chaminade, but that was a Christmas tournament in Hawaii. Not the NCAA tournament. This is bigger. This will resonate louder and longer.
