SN 140 Moments: No. 122 – No. 16 seed UMBC routs No. 1 Virginia in first round of NCAA Tournament originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
If you asked 1,000 college basketball fans what UMBC stands for, you might not find more than a few who could properly place it as the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
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Every one of them could tell you what UMBC means.
It will stand forever as the author of the greatest upset in NCAA March Madness history. The Retrievers didn’t just win, they dominated No. 1 overall seed Virginia on Friday, Mar. 16, 2018, in one of the last games of the 2018 opening round. They won by 20 points, 74-54, led by 28 points from guard Jairus Lyles.
The NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, creating the No. 1 vs. 16 matchup in four regions. Before the UVa-UMBC game began, 16 seeds had lost 135 out of 135. Western Carolina lost to Purdue by two points in 1996. Princeton famously lost by a single point against Georgetown in 1989.
Those games were so rare, it became a big deal merely that they came close.
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There was no reason to believe UMBC would rewrite that history. The Retrievers didn’t even finish first in their conference and entered the NCAAs as conference tournament winners. But coach Ryan Odom convinced them to play calmly and efficiently, and Virginia’s Tony Bennett chose not to apply a fullcourt press until his Cavaliers were out of time.
“It was not even close,” Bennett said afterward. “That was a thorough butt-whipping.”
Virginia came back the following year to win the NCAA title.
Odom used the renown of that victory to get a more prominent job at Utah State, then to move back closer to his home region as coach at VCU. When Bennett chose to retire because he did not care for the direction of college sports, it was Odom who replaced him.
MORE: Back to The Sporting News’ 140 Greatest Sports Moments of All Time
