On March 16, 2018, during the first round of the
2018 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, the
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...
(Virginia; also UVA)
Cavaliers
The term Cavalier () was first used by Roundheads as a term of abuse for the wealthier royalist supporters of King Charles I and his son Charles II of England during the English Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration (1642 – ). It ...
played a
college basketball
In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...
game against the
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is a public research university in Baltimore County, Maryland. It has a fall 2022 enrollment of 13,991 students, 61 undergraduate majors, over 92 graduate programs (38 master, 25 doctoral, ...
(UMBC)
Retrievers at the
Spectrum Center in
Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most popu ...
. The Cavaliers, who were seeded first in the South regional bracket and first overall in the NCAA Tournament, faced the Retrievers, who were seeded 16th in the South regional bracket. Virginia and UMBC competed for the right to face ninth-seeded
Kansas State, which had already won their first-round game against
Creighton earlier in the day.
The Retrievers defeated the Cavaliers 74–54, becoming the first No. 16 seed to defeat a No. 1 seed in the
NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament
The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as NCAA March Madness and commonly called March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball teams fro ...
. It was only the second time in college basketball overall, after
No. 16 seeded Harvard defeated overall No. 1 Stanford in the
women's tournament twenty years earlier. UMBC also earned its first NCAA Tournament win in school history.
With Virginia set as a 20.5 point favorite heading into the game, UMBC's victory was the second-biggest upset in terms of point spread in NCAA Tournament history behind
Norfolk State's defeat of
Missouri
Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...
in
2012
File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...
when Missouri was a 21.5 point favorite.
Virginia finished their season at 31–3 while UMBC improved to 25–10.
UMBC coach
Ryan Odom
Robert Ryan Odom (born July 11, 1974) is an American men's college basketball coach who is currently the head coach of the VCU Rams men's basketball team. He was previously the head coach of the Lenoir–Rhyne Bears, the UMBC Retrievers, and th ...
grew up as a Virginia fan, the son of former UVA assistant coach
Dave Odom, and recalls the experience of being in attendance to cheer on the Cavaliers as they
advanced to the Final Four in 1984.
Background
At the start of this game, NCAA tournament No. 16 seeds were 0–135 all-time against No. 1 seeds since the tournament field expanded to 64 teams in
1985
The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations.
Events January
* January 1
** The Internet's Domain Name System is created.
** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a ...
. Although there had been close games, such as the
1989 Georgetown vs. Princeton game, a No. 16 seed had never managed to hold a lead through the end of a game.
UMBC
UMBC entered its
2017–18 season under second-year head coach
Ryan Odom
Robert Ryan Odom (born July 11, 1974) is an American men's college basketball coach who is currently the head coach of the VCU Rams men's basketball team. He was previously the head coach of the Lenoir–Rhyne Bears, the UMBC Retrievers, and th ...
.
A preseason
America East Conference
The America East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I founded in 1979, whose members are located in the Northeastern United States.
The conference has nine core members including eight public research ...
coaches' poll picked the Retrievers to finish third in their league, and incoming senior
Jairus Lyles
Jairus Lyles (born July 6, 1995) is an American former professional basketball player. He played college basketball for the UMBC Retrievers. He also competed for the VCU Rams in his freshman season but played a limited role before transferring. ...
earned Preseason All-Conference honors.
The team completed the regular season with a 24–10 record and a second-place finish in the America East. Senior guards Jairus Lyles, who averaged a team-high 20.3 points per game, and
K. J. Maura were named First-Team and Third-Team All-Conference respectively, with the latter earning America East Defensive Player of the Year accolades.
On March 10, 2018, UMBC won the
2018 America East tournament after Lyles made a three-pointer with 0.6 seconds left to defeat top-seeded
Vermont
Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provin ...
in the championship game. The win handed the Retrievers an automatic
NCAA tournament berth, their second appearance ever and their first since
2008
File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...
, when they suffered a 66–47 loss to
Georgetown in their opening game.
It also gave UMBC its 24th win of the season, tied for most in program history.
Before the team's NCAA Tournament opener against Virginia,
guard-forward
A swingman is an athlete capable of playing multiple positions in their sport.
Basketball
In basketball, the term “swingman” (a.k.a. “wing” or “guard-forward”) denotes a player who can play both the shooting guard (2) and small for ...
Joe Sherburne said, "We know we can go out there and have fun and play hard, and we really don't have anything to lose, so it'll be we go out there and play loose."
[
]
Virginia
In a rebuilding year under head coach Tony Bennett, Virginia had entered the season unranked but proceeded to win the Atlantic Coast Conference
The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Assoc ...
(ACC) regular season championship outright by four games over pre-season AP No. 1 Duke
Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are r ...
, finishing 17–1 in conference play including Bennett's first win at Cameron Indoor Stadium
Cameron Indoor Stadium is an indoor arena located on the campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. The 9,314-seat facility is the primary indoor athletic venue for the Duke Blue Devils and serves as the home court for Duke men's and ...
. They then capped an improbable ascendancy by defeating North Carolina
North Carolina () is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 28th largest and List of states and territories of the United ...
in the ACC tournament championship, finishing the regular season 31–2. Virginia entered the tournament seeded first overall.
Two days before the UMBC game, the Cavaliers lost their future NBA lottery pick, forward De'Andre Hunter
De'Andre James Hunter (born December 2, 1997) is an American professional basketball player for the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Virginia Cavaliers and was named NABC Defensive ...
, to a season-ending left wrist fracture. The injury led the ''New York Daily News
The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in ...
'' to change their pick from Virginia winning the national championship to not advancing out of the Sweet Sixteen.
Venue
The game was played at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most popu ...
. The attendance for the game was 17,943. Spectrum Center had previously hosted the tournament in 2008, 2011, and 2015.
Broadcast
The game was televised nationally on TNT
Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...
and announced by Charlotte native Jim Nantz
James William Nantz III (born May 17, 1959) is an American sportscaster who has worked on telecasts of the National Football League (NFL), NCAA Division I men's basketball, the NBA and the PGA Tour for CBS Sports since the 1980s. He has ancho ...
, Bill Raftery
William Joseph Raftery (born April 19, 1943) is an American basketball analyst and former college basketball coach.
High school and college years
Raftery attended Saint Cecilia High School in Kearny, New Jersey, where he starred in basketball an ...
, and Grant Hill
Grant Henry Hill (born October 5, 1972) is an American former professional basketball player who is a co-owner and executive of the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He attended Duke University and is widely consider ...
, with Tracy Wolfson
Tracy Wolfson (born March 17, 1975) is an American sportscaster for CBS Sports. She is the lead sideline reporter for the NFL on CBS.
Early life
Wolfson grew up in Congers, New York, and attended Clarkstown High School North, in the New York C ...
as their sideline reporter. The game was played after the conclusion of the Kansas State– Creighton game, which took place in the same venue. The game had 3.53 million viewers, with a 94% and 54% increase in viewership compared to the 2016 and 2017 games in the same slot.
Game summary
The game started defensively with the first half having four separate ties. UMBC did not lead until just before the midpoint of the half, before a Virginia steal tied the game up for the second time. Virginia went on a 7–1 run over a four-minute period to hold a six-point lead late in the first half before UMBC managed to tie the game at 16–16 before the final TV timeout of the half. UMBC took the lead twice before halftime, but Virginia was able to tie the game up at both points.
Coming out of halftime, the Retrievers went on an early 7–2 run before Virginia used their first of three remaining timeouts of the game. Despite the timeout, a 6–2 run before the first TV timeout of the half gave the Retrievers an 11-point lead. Another UMBC run of 10–4 would force the Cavaliers to use a second timeout. An 11–7 run by Virginia allowed them to get within 12 points before UMBC was forced to use their timeout. Both teams would stall as only eight combined points were scored by both teams before the Retrievers' second timeout. A 5–0 run by UMBC within a minute forced Virginia to use their final timeout. Despite the break, fouls by Virginia contributed to UMBC making four free throws and scoring a layup on a missed free throw, which allowed the lead to be extended to 19 points. The final two minutes would see the Retrievers extend their lead by another point to finish the game 74–54.
The Cavaliers, who led the NCAA during the season in scoring defense at 53.4 points per game, were outscored by the Retrievers 53–33 in the final twenty minutes. The twenty point loss was the largest deficit the Cavaliers suffered their entire season. It was also the only time they allowed at least 70 points that season. UMBC's Jairus Lyles
Jairus Lyles (born July 6, 1995) is an American former professional basketball player. He played college basketball for the UMBC Retrievers. He also competed for the VCU Rams in his freshman season but played a limited role before transferring. ...
, who scored 28 points while battling through cramps late in the second half, was named the game's Most Valuable Player.
Box score
Source:
Aftermath and redemption
Immediately after the game in an interview, Virginia coach Tony Bennett remarked,
Bennett continued to say,
This reaction by Bennett after the game was featured in '' Inc.'' magazine as a lesson in emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence (EI) is most often defined as the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions. People with high emotional intelligence can recognize their own emotions and those of others, use emotional information t ...
and leadership
Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to "lead", influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word "leadership" often gets v ...
. After the win, Odom said, "Unbelievable — it’s really all you can say."
UMBC advanced to the Round of 32, in which they faced 9-seed Kansas State Wildcats
The Kansas State Wildcats (variously "Kansas State", "K-State", or "KSU") are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Kansas State University. The official color of the teams is Royal Purple; white and silver are generally used as co ...
on March 18, 2018. The game was competitive, with neither team having a lead greater than nine points throughout the game, and UMBC trailing by only three points with two minutes remaining in the game. The Wildcats won the game 50–43, thus ending UMBC's one-game Cinderella
"Cinderella",; french: link=no, Cendrillon; german: link=no, Aschenputtel) or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a folk tale with thousands of variants throughout the world.Dundes, Alan. Cinderella, a Casebook. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsi ...
run.
The first round losses by No. 1 seed Virginia and No. 4 seed Arizona, and second round losses by No. 2 seed Cincinnati and No. 3 seed Tennessee, led to the South Region becoming the first ever to not advance any of its top four seeds to the Sweet Sixteen. Another Cinderella, No. 11 seed Loyola-Chicago, won the region by beating Kansas State 78–62, becoming the fourth 11-seed ever to advance to the Final Four.
Following the season, two members of the Retrievers staff became head coaches. Assistant coach Eric Skeeters took over the Delaware State
Delaware State University (DSU or Del State) is a public historically black land-grant research university in Dover, Delaware. DSU also has two satellite campuses: one in Wilmington and one in Georgetown. The university encompasses four colle ...
program, while director of recruiting Griff Aldrich
Scott Griffith Aldrich is an American college basketball coach and lawyer. He is the current head coach of the Longwood Lancers men's basketball team.
Playing career
Aldrich played at Hampden–Sydney under Tony Shaver, where he was team capta ...
took over Longwood. Delaware State and Longwood met in the 2018–19 season, with the host team Longwood winning 89–73. Aldrich then led Longwood to their first ever Division I postseason appearance in the 2019 College Basketball Invitational
The 2019 College Basketball Invitational (CBI) was a single-elimination men's college basketball tournament consisting of 16 National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organ ...
, and was named a finalist for the Joe B. Hall Award (given for most outstanding first-year head coach), which had been won by Odom in 2017. A member of the Virginia coaching staff, Ron Sanchez, also left to become a new head coach as he took over the Charlotte 49ers
The Charlotte 49ers are the college athletics in the United States, intercollegiate athletics teams that represent the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in Charlotte, North Carolina. The 49ers compete at the National Collegiate Athletic A ...
in the same city the UMBC game was played in.
In 2018–19, Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...
again led the Atlantic Coast Conference
The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Assoc ...
standings and attained another No. 1 seed. Virginia trailed by as many as 14 points to No. 16 seed Gardner-Webb in the first half and still trailed by 6 (36–30) at halftime, before the Cavaliers poured it on and outscored the Runnin' Bulldogs 41–14 in the first nineteen minutes of the second half. Virginia went on to win the 2019 NCAA tournament championship in dramatic fashion, becoming the first first-time winner of the national championship since Florida thirteen years prior. UMBC, meanwhile, lost to Vermont in the championship game of the America East conference tournament, ending their hopes for an immediate return to the tourney. In a show of sportsmanship, the official UMBC athletics Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
account celebrated Virginia's dramatic victory over Purdue in the Elite Eight. ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
called Virginia's 2018–19 championship run "the most redemptive season in the history of college basketball." NBC Sports
NBC Sports is an American programming division of the broadcast network NBC, owned and operated by NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal and subsidiary of Comcast. The division is responsible for sports broadcasts on the network, and its ...
called Virginia's 2018–19 NCAA title the "greatest redemption story in the history of sports."[Who will be the next head coach to win their first national title?]
accessed August 8, 2019 Following the championship game, veteran CBS Sports announcer Jim Nantz
James William Nantz III (born May 17, 1959) is an American sportscaster who has worked on telecasts of the National Football League (NFL), NCAA Division I men's basketball, the NBA and the PGA Tour for CBS Sports since the 1980s. He has ancho ...
(who also called Virginia's upset loss to UMBC in last year's first round tournament game), called Virginia's win the "all-time turnaround title." De'Andre Hunter
De'Andre James Hunter (born December 2, 1997) is an American professional basketball player for the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Virginia Cavaliers and was named NABC Defensive ...
(who missed the UMBC game with the broken wrist) was drafted #4 as a lottery pick in the 2019 NBA draft
The 2019 NBA draft was held on June 20, 2019. It took place at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. National Basketball Association (NBA) teams took turns selecting amateur United States college basketball players and other eligible players, i ...
, as Ty Jerome and Kyle Guy
Kyle Joseph Guy (born August 11, 1997) is an American professional basketball player for the Joventut Badalona of the Liga ACB. He played college basketball for the Virginia Cavaliers as a shooting guard for three years and was named the NCAA To ...
also left early and were drafted as well.
See also
* 1998 Harvard vs. Stanford women's basketball game, in which the 16-seed Harvard team beat 1-seed Stanford
* 1989 Georgetown vs. Princeton men's basketball game
On March 17, 1989, during the first round of the 1989 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, the Georgetown University Hoyas played a college basketball game against the Princeton University Tigers at Providence Civic Center in Providenc ...
, in which 16-seed Princeton nearly beat 1-seed Georgetown
References
External links
No. 16 UMBC upsets No. 1 Virginia: The Complete Game
(via the NCAA March Madness TV YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
channel)
Instant classic: Relive UMBC’s incredible win over Virginia in 8 minutes
(via the NCAA March Madness TV YouTube channel)
{{Virginia Cavaliers men's basketball navbox
2017–18 America East Conference men's basketball season
2017–18 Atlantic Coast Conference men's basketball season
UMBC Retrievers men's basketball
Virginia Cavaliers men's basketball
College basketball games in the United States
UMBC vs. Virginia men's basketball game
UMBC vs. Virginia men's basketball game