Maryland stuns top seed Virginia

WASHINGTON – 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 tournament losses left the UMBC Retrievers dancing for joy and leaping to slap hands with fans as they 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.”

For Virginia it was UMB-See you later.

“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.”

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.