This Year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament, commonly known as March Madness, has seen a great amount of upsets. By day 2 of the tournament, it was reported that not a single perfect bracket remained.
The incredible upsets that have occurred included number 16 seeded Fairleigh Dickinson taking down the number 1 seed in Purdue, Number 13 Furman over 4th seeded Virginia, and Number 11 Pittsburg over 6th seeded Iowa State.
However, one team has managed not one, but two incredible upsets and had become the talk of the tournament. And although they have now lost, The Princeton Tigers shocked the sports world with their two fantastic upsets.
Princeton had come into this year’s tournament as the number 15 seed which is second to last. Some would consider the fact that they had even made it an accomplishment in of itself, as traditionally, Ivy League schools are not known for having much prowess in the NCAA tournament.
While they did in fact manage to make it into the tournament, many had quickly written them off as they were set to face off against the number 2 seeded Arizona Wildcats. The game was extremely hard fought, as Arizona had the lead for the majority of the game.
However, a hard fought final few minutes ended up going in the Tiger’s favor, as Princeton was able to get the win by a margin of 55-59. The game marks just the 11th time in the history of the tournament that a number 15 seed had defeated the second seed. The win also marks the largest upset by an Ivy league school in the history of the tournament.
Princeton was now headed into the round of 32, and the game was a Tigers vs Tigers match. The number 7th seeded Missouri Tigers were heavily favored in the matchup, and many people again wrote off the Princeton Tigers before the game had begun.
That all changed after tip off however, as Prinecton would not back down and accept defeat to their favored opponent. Princeton would go on to win the game with a very impressive margin of 78-63. The game had led to Princeton receiving high levels of praise, while many looked to Missouri’s effort as an embarrassment given how heavily they were favored and what the final score was.
The win had advanced Princeton to the sweet 16, a feat that up until that point had not been accomplished since the 1965 NCAA tournament. They are also the second Ivy league team to make the sweet 16, the other being Cornell in 2010, in the past 35 years.
While Princeton would end up being knocked out of the tournament in the sweet 16, being defeated by the 6th seeded Creighton. The impact of the two games they had won have not been underappreciated. Princeton had become one of the biggest stories of this year’s NCAA tournament, and had given fans a classic underdog team to be rooting for.