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The NCAA Doesn’t Deserve The Level Of Glory Happening Right Now In March Madness

The 2018 men’s college basketball tournament has already set records and produced plenty of thrills with the Retrievers massive upset of #1 seed UVA. It’s far more than the NCAA deserves.

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The 2018 NCAA men’s college basketball tournament has already set records, broken hearts and been a truly thrilling 48 hours. It is also far more than the NCAA deserves. Following a season of revelations about corruption, bribery and scandals throughout the system, as well as a marred Selection Sunday, many fans went into March Madness with less optimism than in previous seasons.

But Thursday and Friday evenings changed all that with exciting upsets, including the first ever defeat of a men’s #1 seed (University of Virginia) by a #16 seed (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) in the first round. In fact, it was a #1 seed losing to the #64 seed, as the overall top seed plays the overall last seed.

But the real winner following the UVA-UMBC game was Twitter. Not only did the UMBC mascot, the Chesapeake Bay Retriever, flood timelines with pictures of puppies, but the internet came with fire to roast UVA and cheer on America’s newest sweetheart. Few new the school existed until March 16, but it has a prominent reputation in the sciences and exemplary track record in being one of the most innovative schools in the U.S., and it stands for all the things we wish the NCAA did.

So despite crashing 97 percent of ESPN’s 17+ million brackets, the basketball world is rejoicing. Here are some of the Twitter highlights, including UMBC itself. The school’s twitter account trolled with the best of them, and we were all here for it.

The governor knew what was up:

While no men’s team has ever accomplished this feat, the Harvard women’s basketball team did 20 years ago, and welcomed UMBC to the club:

Wikipedia was quick to let Virginia know who owns them:

Ohhhhhhhhh … I see what you did there …

https://twitter.com/ferrariforbes/status/974855882260598784

Poor Little Caesar’s Pizza. Someone in marketing is in trouble:

Several people were quick to help us understand how brackets work:

https://twitter.com/DSMbrewster/status/974853002375909376

And lots of puppies!

https://twitter.com/RealKentMurphy/status/974851064322289664

https://twitter.com/Boomer145/status/974849893452873728

Of course we couldn’t avoid politics and history

https://twitter.com/Schneider_CM/status/974856471681871872

Other sports teams can be sources of emotional support:

Kansas Highway Patrol was looking out for safety. Maybe they employ this strategy after KU loses:

People showed concern for the students:

And encouraged other underdogs:

https://twitter.com/Cenkys_Law/status/974852043541303297

Not to be outdone, UMBC was a #1 seed in twitter trolling: