UMBC’s historic upset of Virginia activates a free pizza party, and everyone's invited

A coach from Durham, N.C. and his team of Retrievers served up free pizza for the entire country along with the biggest upset in the history of the men’s NCAA tournament.

Little Caesars on Thursday vowed to give away free lunch combos on April 2, “if crazy happens.”

On Friday, after No. 16-seeded Maryland-Baltimore County upset No. 1 Virginia in the opening round, the pizza company tweeted “CRAZY HAPPENED.”

The feat was unprecedented, with No. 1 seeds holding a 135-0 record against No. 16 seeds until Friday night’s upset in Charlotte.

Durham native Ryan Odom took over as UMBC’s head coach in 2016 after holding coaching staff positions at several schools, including UNC-Asheville, Virginia Tech, UNC-Charlotte and Lenoir-Rhyne University.

He is the son of Dave Odom, the former Wake Forest head coach who retired from South Carolina in 2008. Dave Odom was also an assistant coach at Virginia.

Little Caesars plans to give away one four-slice pizza combo per family, while they last, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on April 2, the day of the NCAA national championship game.

This story was originally published March 17, 2018 at 11:47 AM with the headline "UMBC’s historic upset of Virginia activates a free pizza party, and everyone's invited."