UNREAL.
— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) March 17, 2018
UMBC becomes the first 16 seed to upset to beat a No. 1 seed!#MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/iLdbVhNC0A
The NCAA March Madness basketball tournament pits 64 college teams against each other to determine the national champion. Teams are ranked 1 through 16 for each grand division. The four best-ranked teams get an easy first game because they are playing #16 seeds. This is usually considered an elimination game. In the men's NCAA basketball history, there have been 135 matchups between #1 seeds and #16 seeds, and the #1 seed always wins. Until last night, when the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) Retrievers beat the Virginia Cavaliers. And it wasn't even close. UMBC held it to a tie as halftime, and ended up with a score of 74-54. Jarius Lyles, who scored 28 points against the school both his parents graduated from, got the honor of filling in the bracket win.
"WE JUST MADE HISTORY!" #MarchMadnesspic.twitter.com/5NpKkxUFOx
— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) March 17, 2018
The odds going into the game were so lopsided that one gambler won $16,800 by putting $800 down on UMBC.
Here is the $800ML that was placed on UMBC at the @CGTechnology_ book at the @VenetianVegas wins 16k pic.twitter.com/TLWY8dHyBm
— Jason Simbal (@jsimbal) March 17, 2018
While UMBC goes into the record books, fans across the country are mourning their wrecked tournament brackets. And it's only the first round. UMBC plays #9 seed Kansas State in the second round on Sunday.