PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The NCAA tournament is famous for the little guys shocking the marquee powerhouses and turning into the darlings of March.
Upsets happen.
In every region, every year.
With one lopsided exception: No. 1 vs. No. 16.
When brackets are e-mailed to the office staff after the 65-team field is set, typing the “W” in that 1-16 matchup is about as automatic an annual occurrence as ringing in the New Year on Dec. 31. With good reason: The Washington Generals have better odds at victory over the Harlem Globetrotters than a No. 16 seed does over a No. 1.
100-0.
That’s the career record for No. 1 seeds against 16th seeds since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985.
Yet those unlucky 16s, sometimes schools you never heard of from small college towns across America, always think big even if they should pack light.
This year’s likely one-and-doners: Lehigh, East Tennessee State, Vermont and Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Those four have a combined 17 tournament appearances. Top seeds Kansas, Kentucky, Syracuse and Duke have a total of 14 — as in NCAA national championships. All but the Wildcats have won a title in the past 10 years.
Yet, the rallying cry from these small schools is the same every season:
Why Not Us?
Why not indeed? Because if there was ever a bracket where the 1-16 matchup might merit a little more study, perhaps it’s this one: Syracuse vs. Vermont. After all, this upset has happened before, only five tournaments ago.
In 2005, it was a 3-14 matchup.
Win on Friday, and the Catamounts would not only add to their lore as Orange squeezers, they’d pull off one of the monumental upsets in sports history.
“When I saw that name pop up, it fired me up a little bit,” said Andy Rautins, a fifth-year senior with the Orange who grew up in Syracuse. “I think everybody around Syracuse took that loss to heart. It’s definitely going to be a payback game.”
If the game is even tight at halftime — or especially in the waning minutes — that would be enough of a stunner. The No. 1s usually destroy and demoralize the 16s by halftime — and make CBS want to cut away to a more competitive game.
No No. 1 wants to become the answer to a trivia question.
“Yeah, it enters your mind. You don’t want to be the first school to lose to a 16 seed,” Kentucky guard John Wall said on Wednesday. “They could come out and hit a lot of shots and they might get the lead and feel confident. We’ve just got to go out and play basketball like we’ve been doing this whole season, and don’t overlook no team.”
Last year, top-seeded UConn beat Chattanooga 103-47 in the third-largest margin of victory ever in the NCAA tournament. But two other No. 1s — Louisville and Pittsburgh — won their games by 10 points.
And remember, the 16 over 1 upset has happened once in the women’s tournament: Top-seeded Stanford lost to Harvard in 1998.
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