NCAA Basketball: Unlikeliest Conference Tournament runs of the Decade

5. Liberty (2013 Big South, 5N-seed) (11-20, 6-10)

The Liberty Flames were not a great team in 2013. They lost their first 8 games and didn’t score a D1 victory until New Year’s Eve. They weren’t terrible in Big South play, but their 6-10 mark wasn’t outstanding, securing them the 5-seed in the north division of the conference. They faced an uphill battle in the Big South Tournament and were unsurprisingly not expect to do much once they got there.

Initially, as they played at 4S-seed Coastal Carolina, it looked like the expectations were accurate. The Chanticleers scored the game’s first 8 points and had a healthy early lead. But the Flames caught fire, made 45% of their 3-pointers and took the lead at the half. They used an 11-0 run late in the second half to pull away and upset Coastal Carolina, getting 28 points from Davon Marshall.

Two days later, the Flames faced off against High Point (the 1N seed), playing a team that had already knocked them off twice in the year. While Liberty was severely overmatched, their hot shooting early gave them a huge advantage. This time, they scored the game’s first 9 points, building a 17-point halftime lead that would balloon to 19 points minutes later. However, the Panthers stormed back in the second half, though the Flames made enough free throws to hang on for the 1-point victory, knocking out one of the Big South’s top teams.

It took nearly two months to win a D1 game, but now they were halfway through the Big South Tournament, with their next challenge against 2S-seed Gardner-Webb. John-Caleb Sanders led the Flames with 19 points as they won a back-and-forth affair with the bulldogs. The Flames made 46% of their shots and did enough down the stretch to pull out a close win; their third in five days.

Charleston Southern awaited the Flames in the Big South title game, giving them a fourth straight game as an underdog. The Flames would need to be solid against the 1S-seed, and they played incredibly solid offense. Sanders has 27 points and Marshall had 20 as the Flames shot 48%, made half of their 3-pointers and out-rebounding the heavily favored Buccaneers. They turned a 1-point halftime lead into an 11-point victory, sending Charleston Southern to the NIT.

The Flames were 15-20 but they were heading to the NCAA Tournament. They lost a close game in the First Four to North Carolina A&T, though they had already made Big South history. The Flames haven’t returned to the NCAA Tournament after their incredible run and this team and their efforts in March will stand out for years to come. An 11-20 team caught fire at the right time.