First Upset Of The NCAA Tournament, UAB Defeated Iowa State

Update: Another 14-3 upset has taken place with Georgia State defeating Baylor 57-56. And as a result, my bracket is dying a slow death.

It was looking like Notre Dame could have been the first casualty of March Madness, but they were able to squeak by Northeastern 69-65. But no one was expecting Iowa State to fall to UAB — if the latter school sounds familiar, they made headlines when their football program was shut down in 2014.

On paper Iowa State is a better team, but they could not match UAB’s aggressive nature: the Blazers secured 52 rebounds compared to Iowa State’s 37. UAB even dominated their offensive board with 19 rebounds — Iowa State only had 9 the whole game.

“Iowa State’s offense, all year long, has bailed them out of situations,” stated ESPN’s Eamonn Brennan. “In fact, coming into the tournament, Iowa State’s last five games they trailed by a combined 75 points and they went 5-0… It just didn’t happen [today]. UAB was great on the defensive end,” even keeping Cyclones’ Georges Niang to only eleven points.

Still, the odds of a 14-seed defeating a three-seed is very small, with the record, prior to 2015’s tourney, being 95-25, according to The Washington Post. But the article points out that though it did not happen in 2014, “a 13-4 upset happened every NCAA tournament from 2008 to 2013.”

Now, this upset certainly hurts everyone’s bracket, including President Obama’s: he had Iowa State making it to the Elite Eight and losing to Duke. In fact, that section of his bracket was scrutinized the most because he had Gonzaga losing in the round of 32 and Iowa State controlling it the rest of the way.

The final score was 60-59.