Merriam-Webster defines “upset” as: to trouble mentally or emotionally; disturb the poise of; to throw into disorder; to defeat unexpectedly; to cause a physical disorder in; to make somewhat ill
Last night in Charlotte, UMBC, that’s University of Maryland Baltimore County if you didn’t know already, did everything described in the definition above, by beating Virginia, 74-54. UMBC, a 16-seed did what 135, 16-seeds before them could not do.
Personally, I’m still trying to comprehend what I saw last night. Sitting in the CBS Sports Research room, I was scoring my eighth basketball game in the last two days. Florida State was beating up on Missouri in the first half and I was running on fumes. Back-to-back 12 hour days will do that to you.
The great thing about working the Tournament is that while you are concentrating on your game, you still get to see bits and pieces of other games. On a side monitor, by tournament partner Todd and I had the UMBC Virginia game and were taking peeks at it from time to time.
Before the UMBC-Virginia contest, I told my co-worker Mike Levinson, who would be scoring the game, “Keep an eye on K.J. Maura and Jairus Lyles.”
Last Saturday I had scored the America East Conference Championship game in which UMBC beat Vermont on Lyles’ last second three point shot, to send his team to the tournament. Maura who stands at 5-8 is the spark plug to the 6-2 Lyles ignition. As you can see they are not physically big but their hearts are enormous.
Everyone would say that eventually a 16 is going to beat a 1, but then when it actually happens everyone is in disbelief. There have been upsets long before this one:
- Buster Douglas knocking out Mike Tyson at the Tokyo Dome in 1990
- Jets beating the Colts in Super Bowl III in 1969.
- Upset beating Man O War at Saratoga in 1919
- A rag tag team of poorly equipped “American” soldiers beating the British in the late 18th Century.
But this was just off the charts. It actually happened and everyone is still kind of shocked. As I was watching the upset unfold, it made me think of the Yankees-Red Sox AL Championship Series in 2004. The Yankees were up 3 games to 0, having just pummeled the Sox, 19-8 in Game 3. It was over. No one gave the Red Sox a chance. I’m sure Bostonians were thinking, “just get the sweep over with and let’s not prolong the agony.” While on the Yankee side, fans were of the mind set, “well we are going to beat them again.” Then a funny thing happened…
With the scored tied at 21 at the half, the feeling was, UMBC is keeping pace with Virginia and this should be a close game that Virginia will win in the end, because 16- seeds don’t beat a number one. Then UMBC came out and smacked Virginia in the face with a 17-3 run to start the second half. So much for staying on script! The dagger in Virginia’s back came at 8:36 when Maura hit a 3-pointer to put UMBC up by 16. Virginia and their fans looked stunned. Maybe this will be the year. Something special was happening.
The crew in the research room always maintains their professionalism. This is a veteran group has literally scored thousands of football and basketball games. We don’t cheer or scream when something crazy happens. Last night we all did our jobs but there was something special in the air. Never mind that almost all of us had Virginia going far, if not winning the NCAA Tournament. We didn’t care we were pulling for the underdog. We even made a sign and took a picture to commemorate the occasion and that is something we NEVER do. Like I said this was special.

The CBS Sports Research Team. We got to see something amazing.
Mike, who scored the game decided to keep his notes and score sheet that he maintained throughout the contest. He said that he would put it with the Duke-Kentucky Christian Laettner game that he scored in 1992. These two games are the only two score sheets he’s ever kept.

Mike’s score sheets from the historic game
I didn’t get back to my hotel room until after 1 am. Then after staying up and watching SportsCenter until 2:30 I finally fell asleep.
Oh, and Florida State beat Missouri, 67-54 in the final game that I was scoring, in case anyone outside of the Show Me and Sunshine states care.