David vs. Goliath to die with expansion
In 1985 the NCAA tournament expanded to 64 teams, setting up the ultimate underdog game – a No. 16 seed against a No. 1 seed. Since then 16s and 1s have played 104 games, and the 1s have emerged victorious every single time.
With the NCAA considering expanding the tourney to 96 teams in time for next year, this ode to David vs. Goliath will be history. Goliath won.
Well, most of the time.
The NCAA on Monday denied the University of Memphis’ appeal of using an ineligible player in 2008. One of the punishments for the Tigers was the vacating of all 38 victories from that season, including five in the NCAA tournament.
That includes an 87-63 first-round triumph over the University of Texas-Arlington where Memphis was the No. 1 seed and UTA was a No. 16. Officially, the No. 1 seed didn’t win the game.
This isn’t a new phenomenon. Over two-and-a-half decades, 44 teams have had their NCAA tournament victories wiped out due to nefarious conduct. Seven of those teams were top seeds that defeated lowly, law-abiding 16s. (Not once has a 16 seed been sanctioned).
So does that mean UT-Arlington was victorious, albeit by a technicality that would only be recognized in some record book?
No. A vacated victory is not the same as a forfeited game. While Memphis didn’t technically/historically win the game, neither did UT-Arlington. In fact, it is still a recorded loss for UTA. And it’s not a loss for Memphis either. It just goes down as, well, nothing.
“While some may use the terms ‘vacated’ and ‘forfeited’ interchangeably, they are actually two different things,” NCAA spokeswoman Stacey Osburn said. “Vacated wins only affect the school in question, and not any of its competitors.
“If a university has their wins vacated, then they lose those wins,” Osburn continued. “However, their past competitors don’t then get that win. Their competitor’s loss remains. In the rule book, the contest will have an asterisk next to it, explaining that the win was vacated.”
So in this case, there was a game with no winner, but one loser.
This is a rather pessimistic way of looking at the world but, then again, we’re talking about the brainchild of some NCAA subcommittee. The entire idea of vacating victories is ridiculous in the first place, a toothless penalty designed to create bad public relations more than anything else.
Not winning the game but not having the other team claim victory either has to rank as the most empty “win” possible; not exactly the stuff that inspires net clipping and champagne chugging.
That said, since we’re talking about the annals of the 1-16 bloodbath, this is as good as it gets for the little guys. It’s like the last remaining bass after a fishing tournament.
It takes on added meaning because it could be the last of its kind. With the NCAA likely to expand the tournament next year, the top eight seeds in each region are expected to receive a one-game bye. The worst teams in the field (the current 16s) will be 24-seeds and would be matched up against 9 seeds. The winner would play an 8 seed. It would take two victories for a 24 seed to meet a 1 seed. In that case, they wouldn’t be some weak sister, but a pretty good national darling.
So expansion ends the era, only without the ultimate upset payoff that everyone figured was inevitable.
All there is to celebrate are the teams “defeated” by asterisks.
The trailblazer in this humble group was Michigan, which manhandled Coastal Carolina, 86-53, in 1993.
“Right now, I’m tired,” Coastal Carolina forward Tony Dunkin said at the time. “I feel like a beaten soldier.”
A decade later, we presume Dunkin was rested and at least bemused when the NCAA sanctioned the Wolverines basketball team for illegal booster payments to players. Suddenly Michigan wasn’t victorious.
In 1994, Missouri sunk Navy, 76-53 in a battle of 1 vs. 16 only to have the NCAA torpedo that result due to the Tigers using an ineligible player. Strike up Anchors Aweigh.
Then there was the legendary 1996 NCAA tournament which saw three of the top seeds in the field get retroactively banished for cheating. Connecticut’s victory over Colgate didn’t last due to rule violations. Massachusetts hammered Central Florida 92-70 then got hammered by the NCAA. Purdue snuck by Western Carolina then got caught by the enforcement staff.
The only No. 1 seed to survive the retroactive arm of the enforcement staff? Kentucky.
The Purdue result is the most intriguing. The Boilermakers defeated Western Carolina 73-71 in overtime, barely avoiding the ultimate historic humiliation. The only 1-16 games closer came in 1989 when Georgetown needed a last-second block by Alonzo Mourning to hold off Princeton 50-49 and East Tennessee State led Oklahoma most of the way before falling 72-71.
Purdue was a weak No. 1 that year – it lost in the second round to Georgia. The ineligible player deal is specious, of course. If, say, in 2008 Memphis had sat Derrick Rose, the player in question, the Tigers still would’ve likely defeated UT-Arlington. Purdue won by only two points though. Sitting just one player might’ve been the difference.
In 1997, Minnesota gave up its 78-46 blasting of Southwest Texas State when it was revealed some of the Gophers weren’t writing their own term papers.
Then there was an 11-year drought until Memphis got hit. Depending on how clean the most recent No. 1 seeds have been, Monday’s announcement could be the final result in this lopsided experiment.
In the end, the 1 vs. 16 was a near total waste of time, a virtual bye only with the top seeds having to break a sweat. Only the NCAA infractions committee was able to level the playing field.
If the book is closing on this then the final tallies are in, after 104 games, the 16-seeds lost 104 times. The top-seeds won 97.
