NCAA Basketball: Top 25 NCAA Tournament upsets since 2000
By Joey Loose
13. #10 Davidson 74, #2 Georgetown 70 (2008 Round of 32)
Years before he was winning MVPs and NBA championships, Stephen Curry was a college basketball player at Davidson. The sharpshooter didn’t shine at a big school, instead averaging 25 points a game and tearing up the competition in the Southern Conference.
His Davidson Wildcats had struggled against harsh competition, but entered the 2008 NCAA Tournament riding a 22-game winning streak. They took down the Gonzaga Bulldogs in their first Tourney game, but the Georgetown Hoyas were another animal.
The Hoyas spent most of the season in the top 10 and earned a 2-seed after an impressive regular season. They went 15-3 in the Big East and were led by Wooden Award finalist Roy Hibbert. They blasted past the UMBC Retrievers in their first-round game, setting up an intriguing matchup that the Hoyas were expected to win.
Initially, it looked like the Hoyas were going to win this game easily. Georgetown pulled out to an 11-point halftime lead and built it up to 17 points in the second half. The Wildcats, however, were not giving up.
Led by 25 second-half points from Curry, Davidson clawed back into the game and tying it in the last five minutes. Georgetown’s shooting was on fire early, but couldn’t make enough shots late. Davidson pulled ahead with a lead the Wildcats would not relinquish. Curry hit his free throws late and the Hoyas faced the upset.
Curry led the way with 30 points, while Jason Richards added 20 points. Georgetown shot 63 percent in this game, but lost due to poor free throw shooting (47 percent) and 20 turnovers.
Davidson would pull off another big upset against the 3-seed Wisconsin Badgers before falling to the Kansas Jayhawks, the eventual champions, in the Elite Eight. The way that Curry and the rest of the Wildcats clawed back into this game when down 17 was extremely impressive, igniting Davidson on a Tourney run that we won’t soon forget.