On March 16th, The 16-seeded University of Maryland-Baltimore County (with an undergraduate population of just over 11,000) Retrievers achieved the momentous and historic feat of upsetting the #1-seeded Virginia Cavaliers in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Division 1 Men's Basketball Tournament (Clayton). The game was a classic ass-kicking, with UMBC putting up 74 points over this year's ACC Conference Championship Winner's mere 54.

They busted millions of brackets and almost the internet too by going insanely viral (UMBC's Athletic site crashed in the second half of the game for too much web-traffic) after their Senior Jairus Lyles (who transferred from VCU after his freshmen year) led the team to victory with 28 points, 3 assists, and 4 rebounds. UMBC also out-rebounded their opponents 31 to 21 despite ESPN giving them only a 1.5% chance of winning the game.

While the UMBC Athletics Twitter account went full on savage-mode throughout the game and its aftermath, the Harvard Women's Basketball Twitter Account chimed in its congratulations by welcoming them 'to the club'.

You see, UMBC is not the first nor the only 16 seed to beat a 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. They are the first men's team to warrant this accolade (the previous matchup record between all 16 and 1 seeds throughout NCAA Men's History was 0-135). However, the key word there is 'men's'.

The Harvard Women's Division 1 Basketball team became the inaugural #SixteenOverOne club member after upsetting the #1 seed (and #1 ranked overall in the NCAA women's tournament) Stanford, 71-67, in 1998.

The Crimson may not have trampled the Cardinals by twenty points, but they did execute history and shock their opponents on Stanford's home court. Stanford, despite losing two key players, Folkl and Nygaard (both All-Americans), to ACL injuries a week before the first round of the NCAA tournament, had a recent legacy to back up their ranking, having been to six Final Fours and winning two national championships the previous eight seasons.

The Cardinals played overall sloppy basketball that night, only shooting 33% as a team that game while throwing away a few key passes and falling significantly below their opponents on the rebounding stat-line, and Harvard capitalized on their shortcomings, making them not only the first 16 seed team to win an NCAA game, but also the first Ivy League women's team to secure a win in the tournament (ESPN).

To add on to their accomplishment, the loss was the Stanford women's first on their home court in 59 games (dating back to 1993). Like Lyles for UMBC, Harvard too had a senior leading them in their quest for history.

Allison Feaster, an All-American who led the nation in scoring that year, finished with 35 points, 13 rebounds, and 3 steals in just 39 minutes for the Crimson (Eduardo Perez-Giz). She would go on to become the first female Ivy League basketball player selected in the WNBA draft.

While both teams would go on to lose their next game of the tournament, neither Cinderella run will ever be forgotten. Their fearlessness in the face of adversity, with everything to prove and nothing to lose, with their seasons on the line, proved powerful enough to pull off what most used to consider almost, if not completely, impossible.

They executed with tenacious spirits when their adversaries failed to show up for game-day. Some might argue that the most shocking part of games like these is that the 1 seeds lost, but at the end of the day, in the NCAA tournament, in the thick of all the madness, it's all about who wins.

The Harvard women's team and the UMBC men's team won when the odds were staggeringly against them. They deserved their entry into the illustrious and exclusive #SixteenOverOne club. These are the kings and queens of March.