On Friday night, No. 12 seed Liberty rallied in the second half to overthrow No. 5 seed Mississippi State to give the Flames their first NCAA Tournament win in program history. The East's 5/12 game was the last of its kind in this tournament, the third of which went to the 12s. The Flames' win gave 2019 in favor of the double-digit seed, which is not a common thing. The 12 over 5 is a trendy, practically mandatory exercise in bracket-picking behavior, but it's not like the 12s are winning three or four games every year. 

In fact, 2018 didn't see any 12s win, which was just the third time since 2007 that it happened. But in 2019, the 12s retorted with fervor. Earlier on Friday, Oregon pasted Wisconsin 72-54. On Thursday, Murray State thrashed Marquette in Hartford, Conn., as Ja Morant put up one of the best individual performances in the history of the NCAA Tournament. 

This year's Big Dance marks fifth time three 12s have gotten over on a 5. We've never had a clean sweep. Maybe that's coming sooner than we think. The previous years that had three 12s win were 2002, 2009, 2013 and 2014. The  No. 12 seed continues to grow in prominence, though. You almost wonder if there's a psychological impact to this now. Do fifth-seeded teams have some sort of untold disadvantage? It's spooky, but it's a feature of the Big Dance -- not a bug. Consider: a 12 has won 50 first-round games since the field expanded 1985. The 1988, 2000, '07 and '15 and '18 tournaments are the only ones since the field expanded to not have a 12 seed win. In the past 11 years, 12 seeds are 19-25 vs. 5s.

No. 5 seeds are now 90-50 all time vs. 12s, which makes for a .643 winning percentage. Given the discrepancy in seed, that's pretty impressive on behalf of the 12s. And you can't even say that the 12s were underachieving teams from power conferences. Liberty came out of the Atlantic Sun and Murray State out of the Ohio Valley. 

The only 12 that didn't get it done this year is the school that is riding one of the worst NCAA Tournament losing streaks of all time: New Mexico State. The Aggies botched their end-of-game chance on Thursday afternoon against Auburn; New Mexico State has lost 12 consecutive first-round games in the NCAAs. And yet, the Aggies still almost got it done. 

The only thing left for the 12s to do, aside from a clean sweep? Win four games. Every seed up to 11 has made the Final Four since the field expanded in 1985. The 12s have been holding things up for more than 35 years. Maybe this will finally be the tournament when it happens.