The Great Debate |
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What was the most surprising NCAA upset? |
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Harvard status makes for great upset |
FGCU goes from unknowns to victors |
 The name March Madness was derived from thrilling upsets, and in this year’s opening week of the NCAA Tournament, there were plenty of shocking results to drool over. Little-known 15th-seeded Florida Gulf Coast defeated the Georgetown Hoyas — a popular pick to win it all — and 9th-seeded Wichita State shocked America’s sweetheart, Gonzaga. But the most exciting and surprising upset of this year’s Madness was Harvard beating New Mexico just a few minutes away at EnergySolutions Arena. When you think of Harvard, you think of academics, the eight United States presidents who attended Harvard and maybe the founder of Facebook. You certainly don’t think of big-time college basketball. Only two Harvard players have ever played in the NBA, while 19 Supreme Court justices call Harvard their alma mater. Before ESPN caused Linsanity to sweep the nation last spring, Jeremy Lin had trouble breaking into the NBA — largely because he played for the Crimson. If the only place he could play was in the Ivy League, how could he possibly play against the best in the world? Harvard doesn’t offer athletic scholarships, and hell, President Barack Obama — a graduate of Harvard Law School — didn’t even pick the Crimson to win a game in his bracket. Not only that, New Mexico was expected to dominate. The Lobos are the back-to-back defending regular season and conference tournament champions of the Mountain West and were a popular pick on sports talk shows to advance to the Elite Eight and challenge Gonzaga for a spot in the Final Four. New Mexico brought its 29-6 record and a few thousand fans from Albuquerque to see them pound on the scholars, but they didn’t bring the most important thing — a recipe for victory. But Harvard did. The Crimson led for the majority of the game, using their big men down low and solid outside shooting. They made eight 3-pointers, including one from Laurent Rivard with 6:21 remaining that put them up 55-53. It was a lead they would keep the rest of the way. Harvard also made 80 percent of its free throws, which secured the upset after New Mexico was forced to foul late to preserve time. The Crimson’s upset was more surprising than the others from the first week of the tournament because of the way the university operates and what the team went through this season. Because athletic scholarships aren’t offered at Harvard, the talent level on the team is substantially lower than at most other programs. They don’t look for basketball players who might have good grades. They look for fantastic students who happen to have a good jump shot. The Crimson had to overcome another kind of adversity as well. Before the season, Harvard’s two co-captains withdrew from the school after they were caught in a cheating scandal involving 125 undergraduates and a take-home exam in their government class. Their leadership was gone, not to mention their scoring and playmaking. But head coach Tommy Amaker didn’t give up on his players. He believed in them, and they made believers out of many at ESA. Those who weren’t wearing Lobo red were cheering for Harvard like they would cheer on the hometown Jazz. The players know they have bright futures ahead of them — probably in economics, law and business. They’re the athletes you think of on the NCAA commercials that say “most of us will go pro in something other than sports.” But for that one night in Salt Lake City, they were basketball players and had the best upset by far. |
 There’s a reason the NCAA Tournament is called March Madness. It’s the same reason why so much of our beloved country is consumed by it every year, why offices across the nation form bracket pools and why the people in those pools post pictures of brackets being burned or shredded via Facebook and Twitter. It’s because of the upsets. You almost never see a tournament where each No. 1 seed runs through their region and battles the other top contenders in the Final Four — and we love that. We love seeing the Cinderella stories unfold, even as they fill us with despair when they knock out the school we picked as champion. This year has been no different, with several highly-seeded teams succumbing to the will of the unheralded but determined underdogs. But with so many upsets, which was the most surprising? While La Salle, who upset Kansas State as a 13 seed, surprised us all, and Harvard grabbed its first tournament win over Mountain West Conference champion New Mexico, those performances weren’t the most shocking. The best was when a bunch of guys in blue jerseys announced to America there is such a thing as Florida Gulf Coast University. That’s not a knock on Harvard. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one putting red ink to tournament paper when they pulled off one of the more shocking upsets we’ve seen in recent years. But Harvard had faced three other tournament teams this season. Memphis beat them by 10 points, but they were within one point of beating St. Mary’s after beating California by five — both of those coming on the road. So even though New Mexico came into the Big Dance with a 29-6 record, the Crimson players were confident they could at least put up a fight against a more established basketball team. While Harvard had made two appearances in the tournament before, no one had ever heard of Florida Gulf Coast University. In fact, the school has only been around since 1991, and this season was just the second year the Eagles were even eligible to make the NCAA Tournament. Some have suggested that FGCU was under-seeded and that they are better than a No. 15. That’s revisionists’ history. The Eagles lost six times to teams outside the top 200 in RPI this year and only made it into the Dance because of their victory in the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament. So anyone who suggests that FGCU was better than their seed is either selling something or they picked Georgetown to win the championship. Speaking of which, five of the top 62 brackets in the ESPN Tournament Challenge did have Georgetown as the champion, while no one in the top 100 picked New Mexico to win it all. Unlike UNM, Georgetown played in a conference that sent eight — yes, eight — teams to the tournament, and three of them are still dancing: overall-No. 1 seed Louisville, Syracuse and Marquette. The Hoyas were 4-2 against those teams during the regular season, including a victory over Louisville in their only meeting on Jan. 26. There’s no doubt Harvard’s victory against a very good New Mexico team was unexpected to say the least. But people have heard of Harvard, and I even know of a few people that correctly picked that game. But I have yet to meet someone who predicted that Florida Gulf Coast College — University, I mean — would take out the Hoyas that were making their 29th tournament appearance. |
The Great Debate: What was the most surprising NCAA upset?
March 27, 2013