Men's Basketball | 3/17/2015 12:54:00 PM
Cinderellas' stories: Memory of upsets still strong
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The first thing Fang Mitchell needed to do was find his team a hotel room.It's funny to him now, 18 years later. He laughs when he talks about having to worry about booking No. 15 seed Coppin State a place to sleep the night after the Eagles defeated No. 2 seed South Carolina in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
There were no rooms ready because nobody anticipated they would be in Pittsburgh so long.
"It was the biggest moment of (the players') lives," Mitchell said. "They worked hard to get to that point. Basically, they felt they could go and win. They wanted to win it all. That would've been unbelievable to a lot of people who thought there was no way they are going to win."
At the time, Coppin State -- which needed two overtime victories in its conference tournament just to make the field -- was just the third No. 15 seed to defeat a No. 2 seed. It's happened four more times since, including Lehigh's upset of Duke in 2012 and Florida Gulf Coast's remarkable run in 2013.
The Cinderella stories happen every year in the NCAA Tournament, whether it's a one-and-done upset like Coppin State or the Archie Miller-led Dayton team that made the Elite Eight last season. A No. 16 seed has never beaten a No. 1 seed, but March Madness has seen just about everything else.
And it all starts when nobody else is paying attention.
For Coppin State, the road to an upset bid began during a tough non-conference schedule that featured teams like Oklahoma and Illinois. Mitchell called those experiences "paramount" to the Eagles' later success.
"Most of the time, when you play against bigger schools, that's intimidation in itself, and young men don't believe they can play with them," Mitchell said. "We had a schedule we mandated every year that we had to go play against those big schools. They were confident that they could be successful. They prepared and wanted nothing but a victory."
Northwestern State coach Mike McConathy can relate. The Demons -- a No. 14 seed who upset No. 3 seed Iowa in 2006 -- traveled to to play teams such as Louisville and Marquette. The Demons challenged themselves, even pulling off an upset at Utah State and losing to Oklahoma State by just three points.
Northwestern State was an experienced team, one that started with 11 freshman and grew into two-time league champions that lost in the conference championship game the year before. So, by the time the NCAA Tournament began in 2006, the Demons weren't intimidated. They had seen it all.
"We got beat up and finally got a little confidence," McConathy said. "We played in a lot of places against a lot of very good teams. We believed in our system and what we were trying to do at that time."
It worked. Trailing by as many as 17 points in the second half, Northwestern State stormed back to pull off the upset. And the comeback all started with one seemingly insignificant moment that McConathy sometimes forgets.
Read more:
http://www.timesonline.com/sports/college/basketball/cinderellas-stories-memory-of-upsets-still-strong/article_877bfee0-cb98-11e4-b278-73143b8aed9f.html
