THE DEFINITION OF AN UPSET
By John Giannini, La Salle

 

Having spent eight seasons as a coach at the mid-major level, it comes as no surprise that we continue to see teams like Montana, Wichita State, Wisconsin-Milwaukee and others have success on college basketball’s biggest stage. Are we almost reaching a point where the word “upset” may need to be re-defined?

Was UW-Milwaukee’s win over Oklahoma a real upset? Yes.

There is and will always be differing opinions. Most will take it at face value for what it is, a great story. But others will make the case for being the better team or note that this isn’t the first time they have pulled the trick. All of that is really splitting hairs.

The question isn’t how we should classify these wins. The question is whether or not we should continue to be surprised by all the surprises?

By definition an upset is an unexpected win so if the overwhelming majority of the NCAA tournament viewing audience believes that UW-Milwaukee beating Oklahoma is an upset, then it’s an upset.

So much was made about a handful of teams that were invited to the tournament, in favor of some high profile schools. Those teams in question deserved to be in the tournament. They are very good basketball teams. It’s because they weren’t familiar names of tournaments past that there was such uproar.

Therein lies the reasoning. It’s easy to sell that argument of Air Force, George Mason, Utah State and others not belonging because the majority of the fans tuning in would only be mildly familiar with those programs. They would obviously be much more familiar with teams from the power leagues getting into the tournament.

Thus, despite what they accomplished, it’s viewed as an upset that they got into the tournament. It was unexpected.

Those who follow the game very closely would tell you that they did in fact belong, but they are the small minority. This isn’t a 60-40 or even an 80-20 split. Those who aren’t surprised by UW-Milwaukee win over Oklahoma or Montana’s win over Nevada represent about one-tenth of one-percent. And even that might be generous.

Those are the facts and the reality is that there is nothing wrong with it. The lure of an upset is what makes the NCAA tournament such an exciting sporting event. If everyone suddenly recognized how good some of these mid-major programs really are, then this would suddenly become just another tournament.

I know a lot of fans, and rightfully so, will argue that UWM was a better then Oklahoma and that it wasn’t really an upset. But you have to look at the bigger picture. What makes for better drama -- A UWM Cinderella sequel or just another first round win by a good team?

A few years ago Kent State was a No. 13 seed when they defeated the Indiana Hoosiers. The announcers calling the game immediately deemed it as one of the greatest upsets in NCAA tournament history. A year later the Golden Flashes would advance to the elite eight.

Before that, when a team from the great Northwest defeated Florida to advance to the elite eight against Connecticut, it was proclaimed as one of the most remarkable runs in tournament history, given the fact they were unknown. They are pretty well known now. That team was Gonzaga.

To put it into a different context, go back to the early 1990s when UNLV was the dominant force in college basketball. They completely dismantled Duke to win the NCAA championship so the following year there was absolutely no way they could lose until Duke beat them in the national semi-finals. At the time, it was called one of the all-time biggest upsets.

That Duke team won it all again the following year so they turned out to be pretty good. But not many knew how good they were before they played UNLV.

We could belabor this point for paragraph after paragraph, but twenty-five years from now programs like Davidson, Montana, Pacific, Wichita State, Winthrop and Wisconsin-Milwaukee will still be giving the big-name, high-profile, more-familiar high-major programs all they can handle and then some.

And your children will call them upsets too.

The debate of definition will continue, but there is no arguing the fact that the gap between high-major and mid-major is very slim.

Which definition is correct is really not important. That’s just semantics. The important thing is that the no-name, lower-profile, less-familiar, mid-major programs will keep on winning.