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Could this finally be the year a No. 16 seed topples a No. 1?
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When his team received a No. 16 seed in this year's NCAA tournament on Sunday, Hampton coach Edward Joyner reacted in unlikely fashion.
He celebrated.
To Joyner, falling to the bottom seed line was a welcome development even if No. 16 seeds are a combined 0-124 since the NCAA tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. It meant Hampton now has a crack at not just pulling an upset but making history if it can shock top-seeded Virginia on Thursday afternoon in Raleigh.
"It's going to happen at some point, so I tell my team, 'Why not us?'" Joyner told Yahoo Sports. "We're going to talk about it every day. In anything you do, you want to make a mark on your sport or your university or your area. Outside of winning a national championship or going to a Final Four, this would be as big as it gets."
At a time when George Mason and Wichita State can make the Final Four and little-known Lehigh and Florida Gulf Coast can pull off stunning upsets, the 16 vs. 1 game is one aspect of college basketball seemingly immune to increased parity. No. 16 seeds have lost by an average of nearly 25 points per game the past 31 years.
This March offers a shred more hope for the No. 16 seeds as this quartet of No. 1 seeds appears to be among the weakest in years. Kansas, North Carolina, Virginia and Oregon enter the NCAA tournament with a combined 23 losses, 14 more than last year's total and more than any group of No. 1 seeds in history.
All the upheaval would seem to favor the 16 seeds except it wasn't limited to just the top of the sport. Twenty No. 1 seeds failed to win their respective conference tournaments, leaving the NCAA tournament with a collection of 16 seeds that haven't exactly distinguished themselves.
Kansas' first-round opponent Austin Peay entered its conference tournament three games below .500 but caught fire at the right time. North Carolina's first-round opponent Florida Gulf Coast still hasn't beaten a team ranked higher than 172nd in Ken Pomeroy's ratings, but it reeled off three straight wins in the Atlantic Sun tournament and pounded Fairleigh Dickinson in a play-in game on Tuesday night.
Hampton at least swept the MEAC regular season and tournament titles, albeit in the lowest rated RPI league. On the eve of their game against Virginia, the Pirates have the attention of a Cavaliers team that just two years ago trailed deep into the second half against 16th-seeded Coastal Carolina.
"I think these teams can play," Virginia coach Tony Bennett told reporters in Raleigh on Wednesday. "Just because we're a higher seed and they are a lower seed, throw that stuff out."
There are numerous different theories on what it will take for a slingshot-wielding 16 seed to slay a giant, but most former players and coaches agree it will take a combination of a battle-tested underdog, a favorable matchup, an edge in experience and plenty of lucky bounces. It's also important that the 16th seed's coach finds a way to instill belief in his players that they can accomplish something no other team has.
When Albany drew top-ranked Connecticut in the first round of the 2006 NCAA tournament, coach Will Brown handed out, "Why not us?" T-shirts to his players. A decade earlier, Western Carolina coach Phil Hopkins took a slightly different motivational approach before his team traveled to Albuquerque to meet top-seeded Purdue.
"I told the guys they had to pack underwear for the whole weekend and I was going to check their bags at the airport," Hopkins said. "I didn't, but I told them I would."
Hopkins tactics helped Western Carolina come about as close as any No. 16 seed has come to pulling an upset. The Catamounts lost 73-71 after guard Joel Flemming missed a potential go-ahead 3-pointer off the back of the rim and teammate Joe Stafford corralled the rebound but could not sink a 15-foot runner at the buzzer to force overtime.
Western Carolina's record declined the next three seasons and the school fired Hopkins in 1999. Hopkins is content with his lower profile job as a middle school teacher and coach in South Carolina, yet he does occasionally allow himself to think how different his life could have been if Flemming sinks that 3-pointer.
"People around here always ask, 'Coach what would you be doing if that shot had gone in?'" Hopkins said with a wry chuckle. "My answer is always, 'I wouldn't be here.'"
"You think about the money and the contracts. It's not just about money, but I've got six grandchildren. I'm sure they would be happy if the shot had gone in."
Purdue's two-point margin of victory over Western Carolina is actually not the closest call for a No. 1 seed. That honor belongs to the 1989 Princeton-Georgetown game, perhaps the most legendary 16 vs. 1 game in NCAA tournament history.
An overconfident Georgetown team fell behind Princeton in the first half and quickly became frustrated by the Tigers' methodical pace and precision offense. The Hoyas only avoided the upset when center Alonzo Mourning blocked two potential game-winning shots in the final eight seconds to preserve a 50-49 victory, the first a floater by Princeton captain Bob Scrabis and the second a baseline jumper by Kit Mueller.
"When I came off the screen that Mueller had set at the top of the key, I saw the rim and I let it fly," Scrabis said. "Mourning really came out of nowhere. I didn't expect him to be able to reach where he did. When you take that shot on the driveway, the basket always goes in. There's never a future hall of famer jumping out of the bushes to block the shot."
Near misses in the 16 vs. 1 games were rare for quite awhile, but four games have been decided by single digits in recent years. One of the most infamous was Syracuse's controversial 72-65 victory over UNC Asheville in the 2012 NCAA tournament, a game marred by several dubious calls that went against the underdogs.
The first was a lane violation called on the Bulldogs after Syracuse's Scoop Jardine missed the front end of a one-and-one with the Orange leading by four and 1:20 to go. The second was an out of bounds call in which Syracuse was awarded the ball with a three-point lead and less than a minute left even though it appeared the Orange touched the ball last.
Former UNC Asheville coach Eddie Biedenbach was pleased to draw Syracuse instead of another No. 1 because the Orange had just suspended center Fab Melo and the guard-heavy Bulldogs felt comfortable attacking a zone. After competitive non-conference games against NC State, UConn, North Carolina and Tennessee, the Bulldogs entered the Syracuse game believing they could win and exited the arena believing referees robbed them of the chance.
"As I review the tape of the game, I'm still bothered to this day by the officiating in that game," Biedenbach said. "Those calls didn't cost us the game but they cost us the chance to win the game.
"Our next opponent if we had won would have been Kansas State or Southern Mississippi. As I watched that game, I actually thought we played the game better than both those teams did. I felt if we continued to play well and shot the ball decently, we would win that game. That really bothered me that we didn't get that chance because of those calls."
Today's No. 16 seeds often do have one advantage over the nation's top teams: Experience. In this one-and-done era of college basketball where elite players rarely stay in school more than a year or two, the only programs with starting lineups dominated by upperclassmen are typically mid-majors.
That advantage predictably didn't help Hampton all that much last season when it was a No. 16 seed and Kentucky was its opponent. The matchup was so daunting that Joyner made national headlines before the game calling Jesus to ask for his help. Perhaps the Pirates did get some divine intervention since they only lost by 23.
Virginia is a less physically intimidating opponent because the Cavaliers won't overwhelm opponents with future NBA talent, but the clash of styles still heavily favors the No. 1 seed. Hampton plays at a breakneck tempo and thrives attacking the rim off the bounce; Virginia plays at a methodical pace and its formidable defense is designed to wall off the paint and force opponents to take contested jumpers.
So, no, it's not an ideal matchup for Hampton, as evidenced by the 24-point spread Las Vegas oddsmakers have set. Nonetheless, Joyner remains excited to be playing a No. 1 seed and to be one monumental upset away from being the answer to a bar room trivia question.
"I'm going to tell you the honest truth. I think about what it would be like to win all the time," Joyner said. "In anything you do, you want to be the first to do it."
On Thursday, Joyner and the Hampton Pirates will grab their slingshots and take their shot at history.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
