by Jonah Gardner
(This article originally appeared here and was re-printed with permission from Sports-Reference.com.)
You've done the research, read the tea leaves, reviewed the charts in our paradigm-shifting blog post on how seeding affects tournament performance, and locked in your March Madness bracket. Now all that's left to do is sit back, invent a creative excuse to give when your boss asks why you need Thursday and Friday off work, and watch as a college that sounds like the name of a fictional school from a novel about MFA students eliminates your top seed of choice.
Upsets are a crucial part of the fabric of the NCAA Tournament. In a differently structured postseason, like one where teams played multiple best-of-7 series over the course of a couple months, the team that's favored on paper would win a lot more. But what fun would that be?
So, as we head into the weekend most primed for upsets, let's take a look back. Here are the 10 biggest March Madness upset wins in history. And perhaps we can find some lessons to identify who might be this year's March Madness Cinderella team.
To measure the size of an upset, we used Simple Rating System, a stat that uses point differential and strength of schedule to measure team strength. SRS is calculated over the course of the season, with a score of 0 representing an average team. College Basketball Reference has SRS going back to 1949-50, so that's as far back as our list goes. Also, note that the SRS scores include the results of the upsets in question.
Got it? Then let's bust some brackets.
10. 1952 NCAA Tournament: St. John's 64 -- Kentucky 57
Over 30 years before the 1985 St. John's Red Storm's famous Final Four run, the school accomplished an arguably more impressive feat. It's not that St. John's was a weak team this year; their SRS of 11.42 was 14th best in the nation. Instead, what made this so unexpected was the dominance of Kentucky. The 1952 Kentucky Wildcats had an SRS of 27.21 and were led by future NBA star Cliff Hagan. The Wildcats also beat St. John's earlier in the year, to claim the #1 ranking from the then-AP leaders at St. John's.
But the Wildcats had no answer for Bob Zawoluk's 32 points, despite having held him to just 7 points in their first meeting.
St John's would go all the way to the 1952 National Final (the deepest run in school history), but would lose to Kansas.
In the end, Faried's dominant, 17-rebound performance on the glass and Terrance Hill's 21 points would be enough to eliminate the Cardinals. The Eagles would be eliminated in the next round by their fellow Cinderella, Richmond. Louisville would recover from the disappointment, making the 2012 Final Four and winning the 2013 NCAA Championship.
8. 2015 NCAA Tournament: Alabama-Birmingham 60 -- Iowa State 59
Despite conventional wisdom suggesting that you pick underdogs who shoot 3s, Alabama-Birmingham shot just .167 from behind the arc in this game. However, they out-rebounded Iowa State by 51-34. UCLA would knock the Blazers out in the next round, while Iowa State is looking to bounce back as a 4-seed this year.
7. 1986 NCAA Tournament: Arkansas-Little Rock 90 -- Notre Dame 83
This was Notre Dame's 7th strongest team, according to SRS, in school history. Of the 6 above it, only one, the 1978 Fighting Irish, made a Final Four.
6. 1992 NCAA Tournament: East Tennessee State 87 -- Arizona 80
In the end, none of that mattered to ETSU. Despite being 17.45 points worse by SRS, the Buccaneers held Arizona to a .368 Field Goal Percentage, even while giving up 76 Field Goal Attempts while taking just 51.
5. 1967 NCAA Tournament: SMU 83 -- Louisville 81
(While we couldn't find footage of the game, here's the newsreel from that year's final):
However, the Cardinals couldn't make their free throws, shooting just .357 from the stripe vs SMU's .563 Free Throw Percentage. That, plus a 30-point game from Denny Holman, was enough to send the Mustangs to the next round, where they'd lose to Houston.
Wayne Simien's 24 and 10 weren't enough to push the Jayhawks forward, while Bucknell would go on to be eliminated by Wisconsin in the Second Round. Kansas is the 2nd most successful school to appear on this list. Their 97 tournament wins are 5th all-time, behind Kentucky, Duke, UNC, and UCLA.
While it may be tempting to chalk up this upset to the presence of Steve Nash, the freshman went 1-7 with just 4 assists for Santa Clara. However, while the Broncos shot .377 from the field, that still beat Arizona's .309. The result is yet another underdog making this list by winning ugly.
The Pirates shot under .390 from the field and Tommy Adams and Lasean Howard went a combined 0-10 from behind the arc, but in the end, the Pirates put the clamps on the Cyclones and moved on.
Missouri shot better and kept their turnovers down, but Norfolk dominated on the offensive glass, riding a 45.2% offensive rebounding rate to victory. They had as many offensive rebounds as assists and future Knick Kyle O'Quinn's 26 points were enough to put them over.
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