15 biggest NCAA Tournament upsets of all time

6. No. 15 Lehigh over No. 2 Duke, 75-50 (2012, first round)

The 2013 Duke Blue Devils were littered with NBA caliber talent. Four of their five starters have seen plenty of meaningful minutes at the professional level with Miles Plumlee, Mason Plumlee, Austin Rivers and Seth Curry all suiting up for head coach Mike Krzyzewski that season. However, they weren’t ready for a Lehigh Mountain Hawks team in the first round led by another NBA talent, guard C.J. McCollum.

Despite the fact that he shot 9-of-24 from the field and 2-of-7 from long range, McCollum was absolutely phenomenal as he led his Lehigh team to a big upset over Duke. He contributed on every level with six rebounds, six assists and two steals to go along with his 30 points. Furthermore, he allowed the Mountain Hawks to control the game, both with his control of the ball and his attacking the rim that led to 16 free throw attempts for the star guard.

On top of that, McCollum and the Mountain Hawks put on a phenomenal defensive display in this game. While Mason Plumlee was able to go for 19 points on 9-of-9 shooting against Lehigh’s lack of size on the interior, the guards for Duke struggle mightily as Curry, Rivers and Tyler Thornton combined to go 8-of-27 from the floor and just 4-of-17 from beyond the arc.

While some might say that Duke’s loss to Mercer in their history is worse, this one is the bigger upset simply because it was so hard to see coming. Knowing what we do now about McCollum, maybe it shouldn’t have been. But in 2012, it was a game that lit brackets on fire.