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UMBC memes go wild as UVA goes down in NCAA tournament

Hail underdogs! A No. 16 seed had never beat a No. 1 in the NCAA men's basketball tournament, until the UMBC Retrievers bounded along.

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Gael Fashingbauer Cooper
CNET freelancer Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
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Gael Fashingbauer Cooper
2 min read

What's the one sure thing about March Madness brackets, other than you'll eventually lose to the 9-year-old daughter of your co-worker, who only chose teams with blue uniforms?

That one sure thing, until Friday night, was that a No. 1 seed would never lose to a No. 16. They might as well just hand out the NCAA men's basketball brackets with the four No. 1 through No. 16 games marked as free spaces, like in bingo. Who's ever going to be daring enough to pick a team with one of the tournament's lowest seeds to defeat one of the No. 1s?

Let's hope you did, because on Friday night, hell froze over, and March Madness lived up to its name. The No. 16 seeded Retrievers of University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC) stunned a nationwide audience and busted brackets all over the nation, beating the No. 1 seeded University of Virginia (UVA) 74-54.

As CBS Sports reported, No. 16 seeds were 0-135 in the history of the tournaments against No. 1 seeds. No longer. There are no more perfect brackets remaining after this upset, so at least we're all in the same sinking boat.

And as the brackets burned, Twitter users sank some pretty good jokes and memes.

UMBC's dog mascot was especially pup-ular.

UMBC is allowed to deliver a few good slams at those who didn't believe in them. Give their social-media person a raise, or at least a nice golden retriever puppy.

But hey, next year we won't waste time carefully choosing each winner. We'll just go heads-or-tails.

Pick up the remains of your battered bracket, because the NCAA men's basketball tournament runs through April 2.