'Twas the Big Dance's Day to Celebrate Double-Digit Seeds

History has been made.

Never before has the Big Dance seen a No 10, 11, 13, 14, and 15 seed advance on the same day.

OK, there wasn't the usual No 12 in there, but the day before belonged to a couple of those crews.

Chalk another one up to the ditzy secretary who assembled her office pool entry based on Tinder swipes -- or whatever -- but for virtually anyone else who follows hoops, the day was a humbling bracket disaster.

Yet again, never underestimate what can go wrong in any operation that involves homo sapiens. Especially teams with guards who excessively pound balls into the hardwood.

The dinosaurs have had their day. Done in by upsets and a meteor.

They didn't adapt. Sorta like the Selection Committee.

We're still waiting for the meteor that is a 16th-seed triumph, but in the meantime, days like Friday celebrated mankind's very existence due to perserverance against all odds and heaping helpings of self-belief.

Not even donning the uniforms of Magic Johnson's title-claiming Spartans could save Michigan State from a 15th-seeded Middle Tennessee State, by definition the ultimate in directional schools:

Entering the Dance, a school of though maintained that the Big XII and Pac-12 were overvalued. Each began the tourney with seven entries; now, the XII has three survivors and the 12 has two, and this is after only one round.

The ghost of 14th-seed Stephen F Austin must've been calling plays from beyond the grave. West Virginia coach Bob Huggins surely reminded his charges that any team with a 20-game winning streak has got to be taken seriously. The Mountaineers may not have been listening:

Volcanoes probably played a part in bumming out the dinosaurs, too. Kinda like the one that churned out what's now Hawai'i. Count the California Golden Bears as knowing how it feels, especially when the bench depth isn't there.

Maybe the 13th-seed Warriors should put Rainbow back in their name. They finally hit the pot of gold that is that first-ever March Madness victory:

It's here where we must pause to pay homage to those two No 12s who had the Thursday headlines all to themselves:

Dude wasn't looking ahead, but Texas coach Shaka Smart surely saw his former crew at VCU looming over the horizon. If each held serve, they'd meet in the Elite Eight. But that storyline was not to be.

In what was easily the Powerball play of the day, Northern Iowa drew the lucky ticket.

The Panthers are making an annual habit of nailing higher seeds.

As a result, the state of Iowa now has more teams remaining in the Dance than the Pac-12.

The No 10 seed to join these ranks drips with more irony than Sean Miller's epic body flood. Coincidence, too. In 2014 around this time, the favored Orange needed this heart-stopper to avoid an upset by Dayton:

Now, they've finally returned the favor, but the irony remains rich:

And so it was, the chaos that is March Madness serving up its metaphor for the prevalence of hope.