The Biggest Upset In The History Of The NCAA

St. Peters Defies All Odds

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Saint Peter’s forward Oumar Diahame (24), guard Matthew Lee (15) and forward KC Ndefo (11). Picture taken by Zach Bolinger from AL.com

When looked at this statistically, this has the potential to be the biggest NCAA upset yet. In the first round of the 2022 NCAA March Madness tournament, the 11 seed—St. Peter’s—upset the two seed—Kentucky—85-79. This has occurred before in the history of the NCAA, but this one might take the cake.

Taking a look at the comparisons of the two schools program statistics: Kentucky puts $18.6 million towards basketball alone, while St. Peter’s only puts forward $1.6 million. This alone makes this specific win special. To only further show the impact of this game, St. Peter’s had never even won an NCAA tournament game before, while Kentucky has won eight NCAA championships.

Another highlighted difference was the rosters of either team. Kentucky holstered 3 five-stars, 5 four-stars, and 2 three-star athletes on their line up. St. Peter’s didn’t even have a ranked player. St. Peter’s averaged 3,206 people in attendance at home games, and Kentucky averaged 20,045 people per game.

The students of St. Peter’s felt how accomplishing this victory was. A quote by senior Radakovic from a New York Times article on the game quotes, “Everyone was freaking out. It was crazy,” Radakovic said. “There were a bunch of chairs set up, and at the end of the game, nobody was sitting on the chairs. Everybody was standing up.”

Image taken from ‘s New York Post article of player Doug Edert, after scoring 20 from coming off the bench.

This wasn’t even the end of the road for St. Peter’s, as they went on to win against 7 seed Murray St. 70-60 on March 19th. They aren’t done just yet, and are ready to take on their next opponent Purdue on March 25th at 7:09 PM EST.

Not many have stopped and actually thought about the volume of this win. The energy was there that day. St. Peter’s brought the energy and desire to win that game, creating possibly the biggest upset in the history of the NCAA.