NCAA Basketball: Top 25 NCAA Tournament upsets since 2000
By Joey Loose
6. #15 Florida Gulf Coast 78, #2 Georgetown 68 (2013 Round of 64)
By 2013, the Georgetown Hoyas were a program with untapped potential. After making the Final Four in 2007, the team had been upset early in each of their last four Tourney appearances. Even with studs like Roy Hibbert and Greg Monroe passing through the program, the Hoyas were struggling in March.
The 2013 season was a chance for redemption, as the Hoyas marched through conference play (14-4) in the last year of the old Big East. They were given a 2-seed for their efforts and looked forward to earning that redemption.
Their first round match-up was against a relative unknown: the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles. FGCU was a young university and the Eagles were making their first NCAA Tournament, surging under coach Andy Enfield. They won the Atlantic Sun Tournament and arrived in Philadelphia to face the Hoyas, knowing they had nothing to lose.
The first half of the first-round match-up didn’t go as the Hoyas planned, as they faced a 24-22 halftime deficit. The expectation was that Georgetown would pull away in the second half, but the exact opposite happened.
FGCU used a 21-2 run to take complete control of the game. The Hoyas would fight back, but a gritty effort on both ends from the Eagles allowed them to keep the lead. An alley-oop by Chase Fieler helped secure that lead late and the Eagles had themselves an unbelievable upset win.
Two years earlier, the Eagles weren’t even NCAA eligible; heck, the university didn’t exist 25 years before this game. 24 points from Sherwood Brown and 23 points from Bernard Thompson helped the Eagles bust brackets around the country. They made enough free throws (making 30 for the game) when it became a foul-fest late. Otto Porter struggled (13 points on 17 shots), while Markel Starks’ 23 points paced the Hoyas.
This outcome was completely unexpected, even if the Hoyas had become upset-prone in recent years. This was an Eagles program with absolutely no history and they really surprised America on this day.
They’d take things one step further, knocking off the 7-seed San Diego State Aztecs to become the first 15 seed to ever make the Sweet Sixteen. Though the run would end there and Enfield would leave to coach the USC Trojans, the Eagles left their mark on history, pulling off a remarkable upset that came out of nowhere.