We admit to not knowing that there’s a school called Florida Gulf Coast University, and we’re confident that we weren’t the only ones who had no clue it even existed. But after its basketball team, the Eagles, managed to pull off one of the biggest upsets in NCAA tournament history, nobody’s going to forget about them anymore.
If you thought Harvard upsetting New Mexico was a shocker, that had nothing compared to what FGCU did.
Think about it: a school that was only founded in 1991 and wasn’t eligible for the NCAA tournament until last year pulling off a decisive victory against the big, bad Georgetown Hoyas.
Welcome to the dance, Florida Gulf Coast. Hell of a way to crash it, too.
In a much broader scale, FGCU’s shocking upset of Georgetown is just the latest example of why this year’s tournament is so wide open. You probably have a better shot at just closing your eyes and throwing a dart in the sky trying to hit a mockingbird than you would picking the winner of the tournament.
After the first round of the tournament, here’s how the dust settled after a chaotic and utterly unpredictable two days of college basketball:
A 6 seed (UCLA) got sent home by an 11 seed (Minnesota).
Three of the four 5 seeds (Oklahoma State, UNLV, and Wisconsin) have been dispatched by three 12 seeds (Oregon, Mississippi, California).
A 14th seed (Harvard) took down a 3 seed (New Mexico).
And then there’s FGCU, a 15th seed, knocking off the 2 seed Hoyas.
If these results don’t perfectly capture the essence of March Madness, then we don’t know what will.
