A Year After UMBC’s Historic NCAA Tournament Victory, Former Star Jairus Lyles Looks Back, Says His Retrievers Should Have Been a Higher Seed Rhett Wilkinson Follow Mar 23, 2019 · 2 min read

A year ago, Jairus Lyles’ University of Maryland Baltimore County Retrievers made history when they became the first 16 seed in the history of the NCAA Tournament to win a game in the playoff. However, reflecting on the achievement, Lyles said his team shouldn’t have been a 16 seed. “We should have been a higher seed, for sure,” Lyles said. What seed would that be? “Fourteen, maybe,” Lyles told Sports Fans Against the Alt-Right.

Salt Lake City Stars guard Jairus Lyles (right) said that his UMBC Retrievers who made history last season in being the first 16 seed to win an NCAA Tournament game, should have been a 14 seed. (Deseret News)

UMBC didn’t win their conference, making the tournament only by virtue of winning the America East Conference tournament.

The Retrievers won their March Madness game soundly, beating Virginia by 20 points. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t taxing on Lyles and his team, however. When asked if a memory from the win flashes into his mind more than others, Lyles said after his Salt Lake City Stars of the NBA G-League that “because it was a tiring game,” it was the buzzer sounding.

“When the shot clock goes off at the end of the game, just knowing what you accomplished and just knowing the game’s over, so you don’t gotta play anymore,” Lyles said. “Because it was a tiring game, so just knowing that you made history at the end of that buzzer.”

When initially for his one-year anniversary thoughts, Lyles said “it’s always going to be a special moment.”

“History in the making,” he then said. “So when you look back on it — nobody’s done it again yet that I know of, so it just makes it that much more special to know that you did it.”

No 16 seed won in this year’s tournament.

What enabled the Retrievers to gain the upper hand and thus win in a rout?

“We played our style all year,” Lyles said. “We just came out, pressured them defensively; made them uncomfortable and we played how we played all year offensively, just guys making shots … and we came in confident. We played the same way we played all year.”

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