Small School Stunner Saturday

Video courtesy the Associated Press.

Shocking news out of the NCAA Tournament today. The Kansas Jayhawks, the #1 overall seed and heavy favorite to win the tournament, lost to the Northern Iowa Panthers 69-67 in the second round of March Madness. To give you an idea of just how big of an upset this was, consider that of the near 4.8 million people that made brackets on ESPN.com, only 42,500 (0.9%) had UNI advancing to the Sweet 16 and only 1,546 (0.003%) had them winning the national championship. Compare that to 98% having Kansas advance to the Sweet 16 and 42% winning the national title. President Obama's bracket took an absolute beating this weekend, with three of his Elite Eight teams gone.

The University of Northern Iowa has a current student population of about 15,000, 92% of which are Iowa residents. UNI is in the town of Cedar Falls, Iowa, population 39,145. Prior to tonight's stunner, UNI was most well-known for being the college NFL quarterback Kurt Warner attended. This was Northern Iowa's first trip into the second round since 1990 and first-ever trip to the Sweet 16. The game itself was the classic case of Northern Iowa having nothing to lose and everything to gain. The Panthers were on top for most of the game then the Jayhawks slowly came back into the picture but not before UNI's Ali Farokhmanesh buried a timely 3-pointer with seconds to go.

But Kansas wasn't the only major team upended by a small school. The 2-seed Villanova Wildcats lost to the 10-seed St. Mary's Gaels 75-68. Villanova is yet another Big East team that's going home earlier than expected, leaving Syracuse, West Virginia, and Pittsburgh as the only Big East representatives left in the tournament. But Villanova was playing with fire, having nearly been beaten by Robert Morris on Thursday. And when you play with fire, you get burned. Scottie Reynolds had a terrible tournament while St. Mary's Omar Samhan had a career game, scoring 32 against the Wildcats.

St. Mary's is located in Moraga, California, about 10 miles east of Oakland, and has a school population of less than 5,000. So what is a Gael? According to Answers.com, a Gael is "A Gaelic-speaking Celt of Scotland, Ireland, or the Isle of Man. A Scottish Highlander." While Villanova isn't a big school either, with a student population of just under 10,000, it is in the Philadelphia metro area, so there's naturally more attention paid to it, especially given its basketball history. This game went similar to the Kansas-Northern Iowa game in that St. Mary's took an early lead, then the game tightened up in the second half.

Other tournament scores were:
6 Tennessee def. 14 Ohio, 83-68
5 Butler def. 13 Murray State, 54-52 (Butler was nearly upset, but held on)
11 Washington def. 3 New Mexico, 82-64
3 Baylor def. 11 Old Dominion, 76-68
2 Kansas State def. 7 BYU, 84-72
1 Kentucky def. 9 Wake Forest 90-60