Witnessing History: Upsets Take Tampa By Storm

TAMPA – There’s no doubt magic was in the air Friday in Tampa as an NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament record was set with four upsets in the same venue.

The NCAA defines an upset as anytime a higher seed in the tournament loses to a team seeded at least five spots lower. The previous record was two upsets at one host city and that has happened several times, but what happened this week was unprecedented and unbelievable. All four underdogs somehow came out of the weekend victorious surely meddling with most basketball heads’ shot at a perfect bracket.

The first match-up of the day in Tampa set the 5-seed Drake Bulldogs against the 12-seed Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. According to statistics on cbssportsline.com, more than 79% of the nation chose Drake to win this one. Drake threw a match-up zone at WKU for most of the first half that hampered the Hilltoppers’ scoring until they figured out how to break it. With about four minutes left in the first half trailing by one point, Drake switched to a full court press and Western Kentucky made them pay for it. The change of pace favored WKU as the Hilltoppers stuck the knife in and twisted, making three 3-point shots and several other big baskets heading into the half leading 47 – 38.

Tyrone Brazelton was phenomenal for Western Kentucky with a game high 33 points on 11-for-20 shooting from the field including 5-for-6 from 3-point land. The senior was WKU’s second leading scorer this season and stepped up when the Hilltoppers’ leading scorer Courtney Lee, who averaged better than 20 points per game this season, came out of the gate cold.

Western Kentucky was leading for most of the second half until Drake’s well known outside shooting prowess came into the picture down the stretch to keep pace with WKU to force overtime.

In overtime both teams came out firing and kept matching baskets, but it was Drake who thought they had the game locked up after a foul on WKU’s Orlando Mendez-Valdez sending Drake’s leading scorer on the day, Jonathan Cox, to the line with 5.7 seconds left, down one, to make the game winning free-throws to clinch. Cox sank both free throws giving Drake a one point lead while WKU had no timeouts left. Brazelton caught the inbounds pass and took off down the right side of the court. Triple-teamed with the clock winding down, Brazelton dumped the ball off to a wide-open Ty Rogers standing no less than three feet behind the 3-point line. Catch, shoot, hold breath, buzzer, the guy behind me said “Oh no, that’s in.” SWISH. WKU won the game on Rogers’ deep j as time expired inciting pandemonium in the St. Pete Times Forum. Brazelton was definitively the player of the game but Rogers was the hero coming through when he was relied upon. Little did we know that WKU’s upset was only the first of a four-pack of unbelievable games.

The second game on the docket for Good Friday pitted 4-seed Connecticut Huskies against 13-seed San Diego Toreros. UConn was heavily favored in this match-up predicted to win by more than 95% of bracketeers. The first half was unexpectedly pretty close with both teams trading baskets with San Diego staying ahead for most of the half. Going into halftime the Toreros held a slim 5-point lead.

UConn was clearly the physically dominant team. Having a 7’3” center like Hasheen Thabeet doesn’t hurt you in that department but in the early minutes of the first half UConn’s leading scorer and point guard, A.J. Price, went down with a knee injury that would turn out to be an ACL tear. Without their point guard, UConn had a difficult time controlling the pace and had to settle for playing San Diego’s game.

With their point guard out UConn looked to power forward and dominant force Jeff Adrien to pick up the slack. Adrien obliged with a team high 18 points, but it was Jerome Dyson who sunk two key free throws for UConn to send the game into overtime.

The crowd was on the edge of its seat seeing overtime for the second straight game. San Diego did a great job of controlling the game during regulation but UConn’s overall talent was too great for the Toreros to put it away in 40 minutes. Going into overtime, both of San Diego’s leading scorers, Gyno Pomare and Brandon Johnson, had four fouls and were playing careful defense to keep from fouling out. As fate would have it, during overtime both of the Toreros leading scorers fouled out with Brandon Johnson fouling Jerome Dyson again with less than nine seconds remaining. UConn was down by one and Dyson reassured anyone who doubted that he had ice in his veins before by sinking both shots and giving UConn a one point advantage. San Diego advanced the ball to half court and called timeout with 5.2 seconds on the clock. The Toreros looked for someone to step up with their two leaders fouled out. San Diego inbounded the ball to De’Jon Jackson at the top of the key where he squared up took two dribbles to the right then a step-back dribble to create his shot. He faded away from just inside the three-point line, the ball hung in the air for what seemed like a lifetime. Buckets. An unlikely hero, Jackson drained the jumper for his third and fourth points of the game. Fifteen minutes after the final, critics were already calling it the upset of the tournament. They may have spoken too soon.

After a slight break, the 4-seed Vanderbilt Commodores faced the 13th seeded Siena Saints with better than 90% of bracket-fillers picking Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt looked a step slow falling behind from the tip. Siena controlled the ball and the pace of the game the entire first half, answering every time Vanderbilt made a push. Siena’s lead peaked at 16 points and the Saints entered halftime with a cozy 46-34 lead.

In the second half Vanderbilt felt the game slipping away and tried to kick it into gear by full court pressing Siena and subbing in energy player Joey Graham to jumpstart their squad. The effort was in vain though because every time Vanderbilt made a push someone stepped up on Siena. Whether it was the phenomenal play of guard Kenny Hasbrouck who scored 30 points on 9-for-14 shooting and went 10-for-10 from the line when Vanderbilt started fouling Siena intentionally or it was the hot shooting of Tay Fisher who went 6-for-6 from with field with all six buckets coming from 3-point land. Either way, Vanderbilt didn’t have the firepower to match Siena’s scorching shooters. Siena walked away from this one knowing the game was in hand before the buzzer with a final score of 83-62. Another 13-seed-4-seed upset. That made three upsets at the same venue, an NCAA first. San Diego might have been the upset of the tournament but Siena running away with their game was a complete stunner.

The final game of the day set 5-seed Clemson Tigers against 12-seed Villanova Wildcats. Clemson got off to a hot start early, taking an early lead and hanging on to it throughout the first half. Villanova had trouble breaking Clemson’s full-court press and couldn’t keep from turning over the ball. The Wildcats couldn’t finish around the basket either. Clemson had a very balanced attack and every player who came into the game for the Tigers scored in the first half. Clemson held onto its lead going into the half leading 39-27 despite having zero free throw attempts.

After the half, Villanova came out of the locker room firing on all cylinders and Clemson looked sluggish. Villanova rallied and Clemson fought them off as best they could. Villanova’s strong play paid off as they took their first lead of the game with 11:56 left in the second half. Scoring was back-and-forth but Villanova hung onto its slight lead into the late stages even as their coach, Jay Wright, got hit with a technical foul in the late stages of the game. Villanova star Scottie Reynolds led all scorers with 21 points. Villanova shot at much more accurate clip shooting exactly 50% from the field compared to Clemson’s 38% and 83% from the line compared to Clemson’s 60%. As the clock was winding down and Clemson began intentional fouling, Villanova only missed one free throw in the final two minutes insuring a close victory of 75-69. Villanova’s win was the record shattering fourth upset of the day for the fans at Tampa. The difference though between Villanova and the other Cinderellas was that after the game instead of celebrating, running around, and carrying on, the Wildcats respectfully lined up and shook hands with the defeated Clemson Tigers. Shaking hands was noticeably classy move by Jay Wright and the Wildcats team. They acted like they had been there before because fact is, they have.

Of all the upset games that happened Friday in Tampa, the most exciting game was the Western Kentucky upset of Drake. I chose this game because both teams in that game were evenly matched and played well. It wasn’t a case of a major conference team not showing up and trying to salvage a win the way the Connecticut Huskies did but it displayed the beauty of the NCAA Tournament in the effort and win-or-go-home urgency in which these two teams played.

Overall this day was one for the books and will go down in history. I’ll be telling my grandchildren stories about players they probably will never hear of otherwise. The Tyrone Brazeltons, the Kenny Hansbroucks, the De’Jon Jacksons and all of the other players who will likely never go pro who have their shot, their number called at the big dance and come up huge. They are the true essence of the NCAA tournament and the reason why millions of people fill out brackets and the reason why most of them get busted.