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A year after historic upset, UMBC congratulates Virginia on making Final Four
By Andrew Olson
Published:
You don’t have to be the biggest college basketball fan to remember UMBC’s historic upset of Virginia last year, the first time a No. 16-seed ever beat a No. 1-seed in the opening round. And you may or may not remember that UMBC’s social media team made the official Twitter account quite popular with tweets that were witty and engaging.
This year, the official UMBC account has made it clear that the Retrievers were officially pulling for Virginia in this year’s NCAA Tournament. People in the athletic department, or at least social media team, thought it was unfair that the Cavaliers faced UMBC questions all year and had to relive the epic March Madness upset over and over.
On Saturday night, Virginia punched its ticket to the Final Four in one of the most unbelievable finishes, making a buzzer beater to tie No. 3-seed Purdue and then win in overtime.
WE’RE HEADING TO OT! 😱#MarchMADNESS | #Elite8 pic.twitter.com/pmX7SHt35Z
— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) March 31, 2019
UMBC congratulated Virginia on the big win.
— UMBC Athletics (@UMBCAthletics) March 31, 2019
The tweet got a lot of attention.
UMBC’s final victory over Virginia is smoking them in engagement on the Final Four tweet pic.twitter.com/8vIW21A9fV
— David Gardner (@byDavidGardner) March 31, 2019
The UMBC social media team had to explain that the congratulations came from genuine support.
We were rooting for UVa. Amazing program, amazing coach. Classy group. They didn’t deserve the vitriol they faced this year. So happy for them!
— UMBC Athletics (@UMBCAthletics) March 31, 2019
So happy for y’all. We’ve been rooting for you like crazy all year. Seriously.
— UMBC Athletics (@UMBCAthletics) March 31, 2019
We said before the tournament we were rooting for them, all year they’ve answered questions about us. Their whole theme this year was redemption from last year, and we support them. We aren’t inserting ourselves into anything. Our paths are intertwined this year
— UMBC Athletics (@UMBCAthletics) March 31, 2019
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
