Upsets

Well, it finally happened.  A sixteen seed finally beat a one seed in the NCAA basketball men’s basketball tournament, an event that had not happened in 135 previous matchups.  On Friday night UMBC didn’t just beat, the one seeded Virginia Cavaliers, they ran them clear out of the gym, then out of Charlotte, and completely out of North Carolina by beating them by 20 points.  This got the juices flowing about upsets in general and how this upset ranks among the great upsets in sports history.  Of course, we need to lay down some ground rules.  First, it’s got to be an upset in sports, so I didn’t consider the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe victory over Custer and the U.S. Army.  Second, it had to have occurred in my lifetime.  Third, it had to have been in one of the four major sports in America (football, basketball, baseball, and hockey), so Average Joe’s victory over the Purple Cobras in Dodgeball in 2004 doesn’t count.  The final criteria is that the game had to occur in a playoff or championship.

Harvard/Stanford – women’s college basketball 1998.  UMBC’s win this year wasn’t the first time a sixteen seed had beaten a one seed in college basketball.  The Harvard women’s team pulled it off almost exactly 20 years ago, beating Stanford 71-67.  At the time, the NCAA would play first round games at home court of the higher seeded team in the women’s tournament, so Harvard had to play the game at Stanford, making the game even more impressive.  Why the upset may not have been THAT impressive:  Stanford was the dominant women’s college basketball team in the 90’s, but the 98 team wasn’t one of their best teams by a long shot and two of their better players got hurt before the tournament.  They probably shouldn’t have even been a one seed.  On the other hand, Harvard only had three losses going into the tourney and was much better than your average sixteen seed.

Mississippi St./Connecticut – women’s college basketball 2017.  Speaking of women’s college basketball.  Connecticut had won 111 games in a row going into its Final Four meeting with Mississippi St., a team the Huskies had beaten by sixty (no, that’s not a typo) a year earlier in the 2016 NCAA tournament.  Mississippi St. beat them in overtime and then went on to win the national title two days later.  UConn’s streak was probably the most dominant stretch in the history of any sport. Why the upset may not have been THAT impressive:  This may seem like a weird thing to say because Uconn was undefeated going into that game, but the 2017 Huskies was probably the weakest team they’d put on the court in maybe five years.  Also, once the game got into overtime, the Huskies were in trouble.  They’d lost their previous four overtime games. Of course, the last time they’d gone to overtime was in 2012, so…

Los Angeles Dodgers/Oakland A’s – 1988 World Series.  I’ve got a funny story about this one that I’ll probably get around to telling on the thirtieth anniversary of this series in October.  It involves my thirtieth birthday party and a lost bet and, well, I’ll tell the rest of it in October because it’s way to long to repeat here.  The Dodgers best player, Kirk Gibson, had injuries to both knees and only had one at-bat the entire series.  Without him, the Dodgers might have fielded the worst World Series team in the last fifty years or so.  Meanwhile, The A’s were a juggernaut. They would appear in three straight World Series.  The Dodgers caught a few breaks (Gibson’s one at-bat was a game winning home run) and they had the best pitcher in baseball that season in Orel Hershiser, who beat the A’s twice.  They won the series four games to one.  Why the upset may not have been THAT impressive:  It’s always hard to pick an upset like this in major league baseball because the worst teams beat the best teams in short series all the time.  Also, the A’s would repeat the ignominy in two years by getting swept by the Reds in the 1990 World Series.  The Reds were also a big underdog.

New York Jets/Baltimore Colts – 1969 Super Bowl.  The Jets were something like a two or three touchdown underdog in this game, as the AFL was considered almost a minor league to the dominant NFL at that time.  But Jets quarterback Joe Namath guaranteed a victory and then went on the field and did it, beating the Colts 16-7.  Why the upset may not have been THAT impressive:  I saw an interview with a Jets defensive lineman a few years after the game and he was asked how he felt about Namath’s prediction. He said he didn’t mind and that at one of the film sessions they used to scout the Colts, one of his teammates stated that they needed to quit watching the game film or they might get overconfident.  The two previous Super Bowls had masked the fact that the AFL had clearly caught the NFL in talent.  The Colts should never have been that big a favorite.

New York Giants/New England Patriots – Super Bowl 2008.  The Patriots entered the game undefeated and a heavy favorite to beat the Giants.  Up to that point they had dominated almost every game they’d played that season.  However, the Giants did an excellent job of shutting down future Hall of Fame receiver Randy Moss and caught some lucky breaks late in the game to pull off the shocker.  And yes, I think trapping a ball off of the side of your helmet for a catch is a lucky break.  Why the upset may not have been THAT impressive: The Patriots were a dominant team in the 2007 season, but the Giants were one of the few teams that almost beat them, losing to the Patriots by four in the last week of the season.  They had a lot of confidence going into the second meeting.

Villanova Wildcats/Georgetown Hoyas – College basketball men’s national championship 1985.  Georgetown had been the dominant college basketball team for several years going into the 1984-1985 season and that team might have been their best team ever. Villanova was an eight seed that year.  But ‘Nova kept the game close in the first half, then shot over 70% in the second half to pull the upset.  Villanova is the lowest seeded team to ever win the national title.  Why the upset may not have been THAT impressive:  Villanova and Georgetown played each other twice that season prior to the tournament. Villanova had ALMOST won both of those games, even nearly pulling off an upset at Georgetown.  The Wildcats may not have been as talented as the Hoyas, but clearly there was something about them that created a matchup problem for Georgetown.

U.S. Men’s National Team/Soviet Union – Olympic hockey 1980.  Back in the 70’s and 80’s, every now and then the Soviet team would come to North America and play a few exhibition games against NHL teams, frequently embarrassing the supposed best players in the world by lopsided scores.  They went on one of those exhibitions in 1980 and played the U.S. Olympic team in Madison Square Garden a week before the Olympics and completely demolished the young Americans 10-3.  I didn’t see the game, but newspaper stories the next day seemed to indicate that the game wasn’t even that close.  That the U.S would manage to beat the Soviets a few weeks later was just incomprehensible, or dare I say, miraculous.  Why the upset may not have been THAT impressive:  Vladislav Tretiak of the Soviet team was considered the best goalie in the world at that time, but the rumor was he was engaged in some sort of feud with Soviet coach Victor Tikhonov and, after Tretiak made a boneheaded mistake at the end of the first period that cost his team a goal, Tikhonov pulled Tretiak and replaced him with Vladimir Myshkin.  In the final two periods, the U.S. didn’t get that many shots on goal, but when they got them, they made them count and not having to face Tretiak probably helped.

UMBC/Virginia – NCAA basketball tournament 2018.  Virginia wasn’t just the number one seed in their regional, they were the number one seed in the entire tournament.  UMBC wasn’t even supposed to BE in the tournament.  Vermont was far and away the best team in the America East conference this year.  UMBC beat Vermont on a last second shot in the conference tournament.  And yet, somehow UMBC scored 53 points in the second half against the best defensive team in the country and won by twenty.  Why the upset may not have been THAT impressive: Well, Virginia lost their best defensive player before the game due to injury.  Also, Jairus Lyles was the best player on the court for either team. He’s probably playing in the NBA someday.

I listed these upsets without actually rating them, but if I had to rate them, I’d go with the Miracle on Ice first and I suppose the UMBC win second, just ahead of Mississippi State’s win against Connecticut.  UMBC lost tonight, so we won’t see another upset make this list, at least this week.