It finally happened! A 16 beat a 1 in the (men’s) NCAA Basketball Tournament! From a $10,000 cash giveaway to free pizza-like substances everyone is getting in on the madness! And did you think your favorite hot-take boys would be exempt? No sir/ma’am! We’ve still got some takes after some time to reflect.

QUESTION: Was the 16 beating the 1 something of a letdown because it was a throttling rather than an incredible just-over-half-court buzzer-beater?

@Callmebednard: A term that I like to use in sports is “leave no doubt”. Make no room for doubters and antagonists to call it luck or a fluke in an upset. UMBC left no doubt. The second half was a display of absolute dominance for a team that looked like it could’ve beat any team in the world. That upset in that fashion is absolutely a million times more entertaining than if a 16 juuuuust snuck by. To down the overall #1 by 20 is what makes this legend even more incredible, and quite honestly in that final six minutes…UMBC was just toying with them. Impeccable way to make history.

@willforthrill If anything it made the upset even better. Watching the supposed best team in the country get their ass handed to them by a mid-major with initials that most fans didn’t even recognize was a sight to behold.

@AVKingJames I mean, of course we want the miracle ending so we get all those emotions at once, but watching this complete demolishing of the #1 overall seed, combined with other mid-major performances, really helped to send a much different, potentially seismic message.

@Rovitz No, if anything a blowout made it more exciting because you KNEW it was going to happen and more people could flip over to see it happen. But, I will say I always thought it would be on a miracle shot, and not an alphabet soup school throwing behind the back passes up 16 in transition.

@BrianoMobile Honestly it was a little bit of a let-down to have it just kinda look like a 1 beating a 16 in some ways. The inevitable victory for the 16 is something I have been looking forward to for such a long time, it felt like half a dud to just be a comprehensive dismantling without the one shining moment, so to speak.