Florida Gulf Coast pulled off the upset of the NCAA Tournament by beating No. 2 seed Georgetown 78-68 Friday in their first tourney game in school history. Their win marked just the seventh time in tournament history that a 15-seed defeated a two-seed. There were so many amazing aspects of the upset win that we felt we needed to recognize all of them.
First off, this was not a fluke win. Florida Gulf Coast proved it could be dangerous when it beat the Miami Hurricanes by 12 in November. The Eagles kept it close in the first half against Georgetown and went into halftime up two. They went on a 21-2 run to pull away from the Hoyas in the second half, and they held on in the final minute.
Let’s look at all the cool notes/facts surrounding their upset.
– When it looked like Georgetown was making a push to comeback in the final few minutes, Chase Fieler threw down that sick alley-oop you see in the video up top, which was the dunk of the first round (video via Diehard Sport).
– After Fieler’s dunk, the school’s Twitter account sent an amazing tweet:
When people ask you where FGCU is, just tell them Dunk City, Florida!
— FGCU (@fgcu) March 23, 2013
The school is actually located in Fort Myers, Florida.
– Florida Gulf Coast University is, as its name implies, on the coast. Look at this picture Fieler shared with Yahoo! Sports of his dorm room overlooking the beach.
– Florida Gulf Coast University didn’t begin having students on campus until 1997. The basketball program wasn’t even eligible to play in the NCAA Tournament until last year.
– Florida Gulf Coast coach Andy Enfield is married to supermodel Amanda Marcum Enfield.
– FGCU is the seventh No. 15 seed to defeat a No. 2 seed. Their 10-point win was the second-largest margin of victory for a 15-seed behind Coppin State, which beat South Carolina by 13 in 1997 [ESPN Stats & Info].
– 2.3% of brackets on ESPN picked the FGCU upset. 1.5% of Yahoo! Sports Tourney Pick’em users had FGCU.
– Since reaching the Final Four in 2007, Georgetown has been upset every year in the tourney.
- + No. 2 seed and lost to No. 10 seed Davidson in the second round in 2008
+ No. 3 seed and lost to No. 14 Ohio in the first round in 2010
+ No. 6 seed and lost to No. 11 VCU in the first round in 2011
+ No. 3 seed and lost to No. 11 NC State in the second round in 2012
+ No. 2 seed and lost to No. 15 Florida Gulf Coast in first round in 2013
– Georgetown’s loss means ESPN’s Mark May is bad at predicting games in two sports:
My sleeper team Georgetown nobody is giving them respect
— Mark May (@mark_may) March 21, 2013
– LeBron James is apparently awesome at picking games.
LeBron James is really on a roll these days. He said he picked in his bracket Florida Gulf Coast to beat Georgetown.
— Chris Tomasson (@christomasson) March 23, 2013
– One Florida Gulf Coast bench player gave us the most lewd GIF of the tournament with this gesture.
– Senior Sherwood Brown, who is the team’s leading scorer, was a walk-on. He had 24 points and celebrated by giving the announcers a handshake toward the end of the game (GIF via BuzzFeed)
Florida Gulf Coast “upset city” shirts are already being sold (via Darren Rovell):
And here is the final radio call of the game courtesy of 98.1 ESPN Radio Fort Myers with David Moulton announcing (via John Cassio):
