A statue of True Grit, the Chesapeake Bay Retriever and UMBC’s mascot, at the school’s Catonsville campus in 2012. (Mark Gail/The Washington Post)

The Washington Post kicked off this year’s NCAA tournament season with a very fun and charming project featuring animated gifs of dancing college basketball mascots.

[NCAA stunner: No. 16 seed UMBC makes history by knocking out No. 1 Virginia]

This was very fun and charming, although certain surprising and late-breaking results meant a few of the dancing college basketball mascots were produced later than others. And then the fine folks at UMBC Athletics were among the first to gently inquire about the initial absence of a dancing retriever. Eventually, the dancing retriever was procured.

And the athletic department’s response was somewhat telling:

If you’ve ever been on the internet — and clearly you have, as evidenced by your presence here — you sort of know what that means. These people speak the language of the dog internet, in which all doggos are good and all life circumstances are improved through posting photos of dogs, or possibly videos of dogs, or even animated dancing gifs of dogs.

[Brewer: UMBC proved again that in sports, not even history goes undefeated]

Which is why, as the 16th-seeded Retrievers were in the process of smashing, lapping, crushing, humbling, outclassing and enthusiastically licking No. 1-seed Virginia into slobbery submission Friday night — a historic upset and one of the biggest surprises in the history of the sport — fans watching this spectacle at home decided the appropriate response would be this: posting photos of their doggies.

Don’t believe me? Or you’re pretending not to believe me just to bait me into posting a zillion photos of internet dogs? Well, fine, you win. Here are a zillion photos of internet dogs, duly submitted throughout the night for the approval or encouragement of UMBC Athletics, which no doubt would rate them all 12/10 good doggos, whether or not they will dance on command.

More NCAA tournament coverage:

Sister Jean will pray for Loyola vs. Tennessee. But she’ll do the scouting herself.

Perspective: Farewell, mid-major. March Madness misses you.

Nate Oats just coached Buffalo to a huge upset. But he about more than wins.

Round-by-round odds: Villanova, Purdue benefit from Marshall’s upset of Wichita State

Fancy Stats: Marshall’s NBA style sparks a Cinderella run that might have legs

Feinstein: Wright is smooth as a martini, even when Villanova is shaken by the second round

Purdue’s Haas fractures elbow, will miss remainder of tournament

One crying moment: 15 of the toughest defeats in NCAA tournament history