Every No. 14 Seed to Beat a No. 3 Seed in March Madness History (Men’s and Women’s)

Choice Sunday has come and gone, and the NCAA event brackets are set for both the men’s and women’s tourneys. And the return of March Madness signifies that faculty basketball followers are formally on upset watch as they await the subsequent beloved underdog that may shock the world and spoil brackets. In event historical past, probably the most beautiful bracket busters have been No. 16 and 15 seeds toppling No. 1 and a couple of seeds. However a No. 14 seed defeating a No. 3 seed, extra widespread however no much less spectacular, has additionally ruined many brackets through the years.

This text will check out each time a 14-seed has upset a 3-seed within the males’s and ladies’s NCAA tournaments. It should dive into the thrilling video games by which these upsets occurred, in addition to what led to the beautiful finish outcomes.

So, with out additional ado, let’s make a journey down reminiscence lane March Insanity-style.

The boys’s event expanded from 53 groups to 64 in 1985, beckoning forth what has grow to be the extra recognizable discipline of 16 seeds within the 4 areas. And it did not take lengthy for a No. 14 seed to spoil a No. 3 seed’s get together. Only a yr later, the Cleveland State Vikings turned the primary 14 seed to win a sport, once they defeated legendary coach Bob Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers 83–79.

Knight’s Hoosiers drew a troublesome first-round opponent within the Vikings, who had received 12 video games in a row coming into the NCAA event in 1986. And Cleveland State, the nation’s second-highest scoring group that season, actually did not make issues simple for Knight’s Hoosiers. It was the Vikings’ protection that made the distinction within the sport, nevertheless. Led by then-upstart coach Kevin Mackey, Cleveland State blitzed and harassed the Hoosiers with a relentless full-court press all sport lengthy, forcing 10 turnovers within the first half—and 15 within the sport. “Controlled chaos” was how Mackey described the technique to The Chicago Tribune.

And it labored. Knight’s Hoosiers had no solutions for the taxing strain protection. They usually particularly had no reply for junior ahead Clinton Ransey, who scored a game-high 27 factors. Cleveland State led for many of the first half and held Indiana scoreless for the primary 2:46 seconds of the second half, one of many massive turning factors within the sport.

And Mackey, after the victory, completely summed up his group’s unconventional technique.

“Most of at present’s coaches are 40- and 50-year-old males who realized from 60- and 70-year-old males,” Mackey mentioned, by way of The Chicago Tribune. “We play a special sport. The thought of urgent 40 minutes a sport is overseas to most coaches. It is sort of arduous to know what to do in opposition to us.”

And Cleveland State wasn’t completed. The Vikings proceeded to rattle off one other upset win over the sixth-seeded Saint Joseph’s, turning into the primary 14 seed to succeed in the Candy Sixteen. The Vikings’ magical trip solely simply ended by the hands of David Robinson’s Navy Midshipmen, who had been victorious by one level.

Sadly, Cleveland State’s basketball program was thrown into disarray over the subsequent couple of a long time. However the college’s magical trip cemented this system as one of many first Cinderella runs in The Huge Dance.

The ladies’s NCAA Event started in 1982 with 32 groups and expanded to 64 in 1994. Because the enlargement that yr, no 14-seed has ever crushed a 3-seed within the historical past of the ladies’s NCAA Event. In 120 video games, No. 3 seeds are an ideal 120-0 in opposition to No. 14 seeds, in line with the NCAA’s website.

However there have been a number of close calls through the years.

Eight matchups between 14 and three seeds within the girls’s tourney have been determined by 5 factors or fewer. Three of these video games got here right down to the ultimate moments.

As not too long ago as 2012, No. 14 Creighton took No. 3 St John’s to the bitter finish, tying the sport at 67 with two clutch free throws, leaving just a little over 5 seconds remaining within the sport. However St. John’s guard Nadirah McKenith saved the day for the Purple Storm, dribbling the size of the court docket and sinking a layup to offer St. John’s a slim victory. Eight years earlier in ’04, No. 14 Jap Michigan, down by two factors to No. 3 Boston School, had a shot on the win from three-point vary with 12 seconds left, however the field-goal try was unsuccessful. In No. 14 Austin Peay’s loss to North Carolina in ’03, the Tar Heels received on a go-ahead basket with just a little over 20 seconds left.

No. 14 seeds have had their probabilities in opposition to No. 3 seeds however have not been in a position to punch their ticket into the second spherical. Will it lastly occur in 2025? Listed here are the 14-seed vs. 3-seed matchups for the ladies’s tourney this yr.

Returning to the lads’s tourney, simply final yr a 14-seed upset a 3-seed when the Oakland Golden Grizzlies surprised the Kentucky Wildcats 80–76 within the first spherical. Led by nationwide championship-winning coach John Calipari, the Wildcats boasted the second-highest scoring group within the nation by way of factors per sport in ’24. Throughout Calipari’s tenure, the Wildcats had made 4 runs to the Ultimate 4. As for the Golden Grizzlies? Together with ’24, this system has made 4 whole appearances within the NCAA event.

However Calipari’s talent-laden roster, with 4 future NBA gamers, was felled by sharpshooting Golden Grizzlies Division-II graduate switch Jack Gohlke, who drained 10 three-pointers and scored a career-high 32 factors to down the mighty Wildcats within the first bracket buster of ’24. To place Gohlke’s efficiency in perspective, he fell only one made three-pointer shy of the NCAA event document of 11, set by Loyola Marymount’s Jeff Fryer in 1990.

Past lighting up the scoreboard, Gohlke’s career-night had a number of ripple results on the sport’s consequence. His teammates appeared to feed off of his confidence, whereas Kentucky, in a last-ditch effort to decelerate the Golden Grizzlies’ deadeye shooter, utilized a box-and-one protection. That opened issues up for Oakland ahead Trey Townsend and guard DQ Cole, who scored 17 and 12 factors, respectively.

And after the ultimate buzzer sounded on Oakland’s beautiful upset, Gohlke nonetheless had the boldness that noticed him mild up the Wildcats’ protection.

“We’re undoubtedly not executed but,” he mentioned, via The Associated Press.

Gohlke and firm almost made good on that promise within the subsequent spherical, as they pushed No. 11 NC State to the brink in a 79–73 extra time loss. Whereas the Golden Grizzlies did not have a future within the tourney, this system’s beautiful upset victory over Kentucky served as yet one more reminder that almost something can occur in March.