College Basketball: Busting Brackets Midseason Awards

Most Important Upset

Rob Kinnan-USA TODAY Sports

January 13th, 2015 – Miami over Duke

It may have been more shocking to see NJIT beat Michigan, or even Texas Southern beating Michigan State (Texas Southern, from the SWAC conference, also has a win over K-State). However, the Hurricanes’ throttling of Duke was one of the most important moments of the season for a variety of reasons.

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Up until that day, the college basketball season had been reduced to a four month exhibition before the Blue Devils and the Kentucky Wildcats met in the national championship game. This was the moment when we realized that one of those tickets had been stamped prematurely (Ole Miss, Texas A&M, and Vandy were all so close to giving us the opportunity to say the same about Kentucky). Duke wasn’t upset by Miami. They were beat up.

The severity of the beating made it clear that Duke has a legitimate weakness on the defensive end, and Miami proved that a good team (or even worse, an average team, depending on how you feel about the streaky Canes) can get hot and run the Blue Devils off their own floor.

Obviously, on the final awards ballot, this loss will be replaced by any loss suffered by Kentucky. Regardless, this was the day when the season became interesting, opening a Pandora’s box of scenarios that could play out in March. Duke’s first loss to North Carolina State could be sold as a meaningless hiccup, but Miami was the first to tell us the truth about Emperor Krzyzewski’s new clothes.

Next: Surprise Team