NCAA upset inspires other underdogs
When Gardner-Webb’s basketball team returned to practice after celebrating the first NCAA tournament berth in school history, coach Tim Craft showed his players a mashup of some of the biggest March Madness upsets ever.
Invariably, one game in particular had a prominent role in the video, as it will in all NCAA tournament reels until the end of time.
“We probably had 10 or 12 highlights of those types of upsets throughout the tournament’s history to create a sense of belief that dreams can happen,” Craft said. “One of them was the UMBC-Virginia game. Of course, we had no idea we’d be playing Virginia.”
Gardner-Webb, champions of the Big South Conference, will have the distinction Friday of being the first NCAA tournament opponent for No. 1 seed Virginia since its historic and humiliating defeat to University of Mary-
land-Baltimore County, which last March became the first No. 16 seed in 136 tries to win a first-round game.
In the short term, that’s probably not great news for Gardner-Webb, which almost certainly will have Virginia’s full attention. In the bigger picture, it raises an interesting question: Now that UMBC has proved a 16-over-1 upset can happen, how quickly will it happen again?
“I would put my guard up now every year going forward because 16 seeds know what can be done. They’ve seen it,” ESPN analyst Jimmy Dykes said. “I’m not going to say it’ll happen within the next two or three years, but no one should now automatically say, ‘All the 1s advance’ because you have to look at the styles, the number of good players out there and the belief factor now . ... So I think any coach of a 16 seed is saying to his guys, ‘We know it can happen, so let’s do it again.’ ”
In reality, for all the conversation about UMBC 74, Virginia 54 as something of a seminal moment in NCAA tournament history, perhaps the biggest upset is that it took 34 years to happen.
After the tournament expanded to 64 in 1985, it took only one year for a No. 14 seed to beat a No. 3, which subsequently has happened 20 more times.
The first No. 15 seed to beat a No. 2 came in 1991 when Richmond upset Syracuse.
Although those upsets have occurred with less frequency, we no longer think of them as impossible.
In fact, we should probably expect them every few years, given that they’ve happened in 2016, 2013, 2012 (twice), 2001, 1997 and 1993, victimizing blueblood programs such as Duke, Michigan State, Arizona and Georgetown.
So wouldn’t the natural progression of that trend mean a 1 seed should get knocked off in the first round perhaps once or twice a decade rather than once every 35 years?
“It wouldn’t surprise me if it happens again,” UMBC athletics director Tim Hall said. “I think there is talent at our level, and if you have a really good coach who can put a game plan together, you can catch someone. But I also think if it doesn’t happen, it would be because no No. 1 seed wants to be in a position to feel like Virginia felt.”
Though UMBC’s win felt momentous, the truth is something like that was probably overdue when you consider how many close calls there had been. Michigan State needed overtime to beat Murray State in 1990; North Carolina and Fairfield were tied with seven minutes left in 1997; and Fairleigh-Dickinson had twice sniffed a 16-over-1 upset – once in 1985 before falling to Michigan 59-55, then in 2005 when it trailed Illinois by just a point at halftime before losing by 12.
Dykes said, “It’s been sitting there cooking on the stove for a while.”
The question was what it would take for a 16 seed to actually finish the job, especially since the tendency for a big underdog is to play conservatively or nervously once it realizes it can win the game.
UMBC was as unlikely as any candidate ever to get it done, particularly against an opponent that had gone 31-2 and had been the nation’s No. 1 defensive team by a pretty significant margin.
Interest in what might be brewing that night began to pique around the country when UMBC pulled into a 21-all tie at halftime.
Like everyone else watching, Georgia coach Tom Crean thought a big Virginia run was coming.
“In most cases, you get down, you kick another gear in,” Crean said. “They never got that other gear. (UMBC) had Virginia chasing the game the whole way. No one ever thinks it’s going to happen to them, but when your energy and the spirit of the game changes and you can’t get it back, it can happen to anybody.”
If there’s anything for No. 16 seeds this year and in the future to learn from, it’s how UMBC kept aggressively running its offense and going for fast-break baskets, even as it hit a few shots early in the second half to build a double-digit lead. There was no slowing the pace or trying to bleed the clock, which could have led to bad, contested shots and transition opportunities going the other way.
“When you see those type of upsets, what you see is a group playing really confidently and really loose and free, and that’s the way we’re going to have to play,” Craft said. “We have to go in and feel like we’ve got no pressure and play loose and free and put our best 40 minutes together.”
In retrospect, Virginia may have been a uniquely susceptible No. 1 seed that night not only because it was the slowest-paced team in the country but also because small forward De’Andre Hunter – regarded by some as Virginia’s most important two-way player – had been injured in the ACC tournament. It also helped that fifth-year senior Jairus Lyles, a power conference-level talent who landed at UMBC after a winding career path, played the game of his life with 28 points.
Still, the upset of all NCAA upsets will be not only a cautionary tale for No. 1 seeds but also a source of inspiration for others.
“You have to use it as a point of reference to give your guys the confidence and opportunity to go in there and fight hard and somehow hope they have some magic happen for them,” said Iona coach Tim Cluess, whose team will play North Carolina on Friday.
Though every No. 1 seed will certainly be alerted to the upset possibilities, there’s absolutely going to be another moment in the next few years where one of them faces the same predicament Virginia did last year.
“If I’m coaching a 16 seed, I’m showing the level of execution that led to that energy, beating people off the dribble, the running,” Crean said.
“They had fun because they were executing, not just because they were making shots. If I were coaching a 1 seed, I’d focus on the spirit and and energy UMBC had, because that’s a teaching moment.
“What happens is the more you win, the more invincible you believe you become, and you can’t let that happen.”
“So I think any coach of a 16 seed is saying to his guys, ‘We know it can happen, so let’s do it again.’ ”
Jimmy Dykes ESPN analyst