PITTSBURGH — You better believe there were aftershocks across the March Madness landscape in the wake of UMBC’s historic Friday night massacre of Virginia.
When you are Villanova, and you are a No. 1 seed just as Virginia was, you can’t help but be reminded that anyone can beat you any time and any place at this time of year if a 16 seed like UMBC can bust brackets everywhere.
It can give all underdogs hope that just because the jersey across from you reads Villanova or Duke doesn’t mean you can’t survive and advance anyway.
It can also serve as Goliath’s wake-up call.
What better proof for a coach than a social media explosion to scare his team straight?
Mike Krzyzewski’s Duke, a No. 2 seed in the Midwest, was an 87-62 winner over seventh-seeded Rhode Island on Saturday at PPG Paints Arena. The Blue Devils will meet the Michigan State-Syracuse survivor in Omaha, Neb., next Friday.
They strangled Dan Hurley’s poor, overmatched Rams. Marvin Bagley III (22 points, nine rebounds) was a man among boys. He’ll find a fairer fight in the NBA.
Grayson Allen, The Post learned, called a meeting of Duke players, who had watched the UMBC shocker in their hotel rooms.
“Once the game ended, we all came together as a team and we talked about it,” Wendell Carter told The Post. “We just made sure everybody knew anything can happen in this tournament.”
Where did you talk about it together?
“We went down in the players’ little lounge they have in the hotel,” Carter said.
Who’s idea was it?
“Grayson’s,” Carter said.
“Anything can happen in this tournament,” Allen said. “Just when people think that everything has happened before, something that hasn’t happened before, it happens. All of our guys watched it, so we know that we need to be focused on what we’re doing, what our game is, because it doesn’t matter, anybody’s winning.”
Coach K applauded Virginia coach Tony Bennett for how he handled the defeat.
“My heart goes out to him. We’ve lost in the first round a couple of times, and we’ve lost to teams that were deserving of winning,” Krzyzewski said.
Villanova, an 81-58 East Region winner, had earlier played with its hair on fire against No. 9 seed Alabama.
“We all saw it, we all were aware of it,” Villanova senior Jalen Brunson said. “We all just told each other, ‘Hey, anybody could beat anybody. We gotta bring it every night.’ ”
Donte DiVincenzo brought it in the first half (all 18 of his points) and Mikal Bridges brought it in the second half (22 of his 23 points), and the ’Cats continued their defensive surge to take their Sweet 16 dream to Boston.
“I would say we just acknowledged it, but didn’t let it affect us in any way,” DiVincenzo said. “We didn’t focus on it, we just acknowledged that it happened, and just moved forward.”
The Villanova players watched the UMBC thunderbolt in their respective hotel rooms. They chatted about it at breakfast.
“Some of the players did, but once we had breakfast and the [Alabama] scouting report went up on the screen, then we just all locked in and forgot about everything else going on,” DiVincenzo said.
It is why they are so often KILLanova.
“You could be a 16-seed, could be a No. 1 seed. We play our way. We won’t take anybody lightly,” Bridges said.
Villanova gets the West Virginia-Marshall winner next.
“No one really expects a 1-seed to lose to a 16-seed, but it can happen,” Brunson said, “and if it never happened before it was bound to happen eventually.”
It never happened to Duke, and it never happened to Villanova.