March Madness Upset Deep Dive

By Alex Gianotti

Anyone following March Madness this year knows this year’s tournament has been especially mad. One of the craziest upsets of all time occurred this past Saturday when No. 16 Farleigh Dickinson took down No. 1 Purdue despite being 23-point underdogs. This was just the second time since the NCAA tournament was changed to have 64 spots. Some sportsbooks had their odds set to show that Purdue has a better chance of winning the entire tournament than falling to FDU. The New Jersey College wasn’t even supposed to have a spot in the tournament after losing the Northeast Conference Final to Merrimack by 1 just ten days before. They were given a spot because this season was Merrimack’s first year as a Division I NCAA men’s basketball team, and by rule, this made them ineligible to compete in the tournament. The Northeast conference is full of teams like Stonehill and Sacred Heart that will leave you saying “Who?”. FDU cashed in big with this win, but practically nobody bet on Purdue’s moneyline (meaning the bettor thought Purdue would win straight up) because of the odds at -10,000. A better would have to bet $10k to win just $100 if Purdue was to win. Sadly, FDU fell to 9-seed Florida Atlantic University, but their run was impressive nonetheless.

To highlight some of the other upsets in this year’s tournament: 15-seed Princeton took down 2-seed Arizona and then again Mizzou to advance to the sweet sixteen. 13-seed Furman hit an insane buzzer-beater after a careless turnover by 4-seed Virginia to send them home. 11-seed Pitt also took down 6-seed Iowa State. Everyone loves a Cinderella story, so we hope these underdogs can keep dancing.