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10 March Madness Cinderella teams that stole our hearts

March Madness is all about the upsets and these ten Cinderellas stole America's heart as they made their runs.

By Matthew Conner

Loyola v Kansas State
Loyola v Kansas State / Kevin C. Cox/GettyImages
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2008 Davidson Wildcats

  • Seed: No. 10
  • Tournament Run: Elite Eight
  • No. 9

Long before Steph Curry was an NBA icon, he was the darling of the 2008 NCAA Tournament by leading Davidson to the Elite Eight. Along the way, Curry put on a show that captivated the sports world.

“That was Steph Curry’s coming-out party,” teammate Jason Richards would say a decade later. “People around the basketball world knew how good Steph was, but that put him on the map because everyone watches the NCAA Tournament. We became the darlings of that year, with Steph being our guy, our leader. He took the nation by storm, and ran with it.”

Though Davidson was ranked 23rd in the polls, they were just a No. 10 seed in the Midwest region. They opened their run with an impressive 82-76 win over No. 7 seed Gonzaga in which Curry poured in 40 points.

Next, they took down No. 2 seed Georgetown 74-70 thanks to 30 points from their star guard. That day, the Wildcats trailed 46-29 with 17:52 left but Curry would cue a huge second-half rally for the win.

In the Sweet Sixteen, Curry would again put up a big number with 33 points in a 73-56 win over No. 3 seed Wisconsin. In a game that was tied at 36 at halftime, Curry and his team would outscore the Badgers by 17 points in the second half.

The clock would hit midnight, though, in the Elite Eight. In a 59-57 loss to No. 4 seed Kansas, Curry's 25 points would not be enough as he would go just 9-25 from the floor and fail to be able to beat a double-team to get off a potential game-winning shot as the clock wound down.

“In 2008, when you think about it, Facebook had just started,” Richards said. “There was no Twitter really, there was no Instagram, there was no Snapchat. Social media wasn’t a big thing. So the fact Steph took the nation by storm, it was newspaper articles, people texting, people calling and leaving voice messages, sending emails.

"That sounds ancient, but people started getting noticed because we were everywhere. We were on TV, we were in the paper. I can only imagine what it would be like if we had social media back then.”

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