Little Caesars Is Giving Everyone Free Pizza Today

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Shutterstock

Even if your March Madness bracket fell apart weeks ago, you'll still get to reap at least one nice reward from the way the 2018 NCAA tournament played out: free pizza! Little Caesars is giving away free pizza lunch combos to anyone today, April 2 -- all thanks to a shocking upset early on in this year's college basketball tourney that triggered a crazy offer the pizza chain never expected it would have to make good on.

During the first week of March Madness, Little Caesars put out a special offer: if a number 16 seed team beat a number 1 seed team then it would give away free Lunch Combos to everyone. Well, on March 16 that's exactly what happened -- the underdogs from the University of Maryland Baltimore County shocked the number 1 seeded and highly favored University of Virginia, taking the win. It wasn't just an unexpected outcome, it was a historic one, marking the first time a 16 seed team had ever defeated a number 1 seed team in the men's NCAA tournament. Before then, number 16 seed teams had lost 135 times in a row to their number 1 seed opponents.

Now, the pizza chain is making good on its promise and will be handing out free $5 Hot-N-Ready Lunch Combos on Monday. That's right, a full freaking meal for the low, low price of zero dollars. 

Here's the Little Caesars free pizza deal:

There's no real catch here. All you have to do to score some free pizza is stop by a participating Little Caesars between 11:30am and 1pm local time to claim a combo, which comes with four slices of deep dish pepperoni pizza (roughly the size of a normal personal pizza) and a 20oz drink from the Pepsi family. You're only entitled to one free combo, and they're also limiting it to one per family, so head over with your friends (or just play cool and pretend you don't know your family). 

While Little Caesars expects to be able to fulfill every order received, they do anticipate it being one of their busiest days ever, and the fun will only last while supplies last. Also, you need to be there and have placed an order by no later than 1pm to get the deal (you can't call in an order ahead of time or get one delivered), so plan to get there early in case there's a line. And if you do have to wait, you could always pass the time getting the lowdown on some interesting facts about the 50-plus-year-old pizza chain
 

Little Caesars locations:

To figure out where your nearest Little Caesars is, you can find 'em all right here.

UPDATE 4/2, 12pm:  According to quite a few people on Twitter, lines at various locations around the country are already quite long (and apparently moving very slowly), so hurry don't delay if you're hoping to get in on the deal. 

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Joe McGauley is a senior writer for Thrillist. Follow him @jwmcgauley.