In a shocking turn of events during an NCAA Tournament match, No. 1 University of Virginia faced a heavy upset from No. 16 University of Maryland, Baltimore County with 74 points against UVA’s 54 points. This marks the first time in men’s NCAA Tournament history that a No. 16 team beat a No. 1 team; however, this has happened in women’s NCAA Tournament in 1998, when No. 16 Harvard beat No. 1 Stanford.

 This year marked the first time that UVA has entered the NCAA with a No. 1 position, and they were projected as the No. 1 overall NCAA Tournament seed. UMBC entered the tournament after earning the America East Conference’s automatic bid. ESPN’s Power Basketball Index predicted there being a 1.5% chance of UMBC beating UVA. With this game being the fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance for UVA and only the second-ever NCAA Tournament appearance for UMBC, the odds were clearly stacked against them. Within the last five minutes of the game, UMBC’s website crashed due to thousands of people googling what the school even was. This year marked the highest percentage of brackets picking a No. 16-seed team beating a No. 1-seed team, with 7.95% of brackets making this prediction, in comparison to 2011’s mere 1.74% of brackets making this same guess; still, only 650,000 out of the 30 million brackets created this year marked UMBC beating UVA. With history being made in only the first week of the NCAA Tournament, this year’s March Madness is sure to be an unpredictable month where no one’s bracket is truly safe.