15 biggest NCAA Tournament upsets of all time

14. No. 15 Hampton over No. 2 Iowa State, 58-57 (2001, first round)

When you’re looking at great upsets throughout the history of the NCAA Tournament, you often see the lower seed ultimately play the game of their lives. They play to near perfection, which is what they had to do to get over the hump and beat a higher-seeded team. However, that was not the case for the Hampton Pirates back in 2001 as the then-15-seed took on the No. 2 Iowa State Cyclones, a team led by Jamaal Tinsley.

For the game, the Pirates actually looked quite abysmal on the offensive end of the floor. Hampton shot just 38.9 percent from the field as a team and went just 3-of-20 from the 3-point line. On top of that, they weren’t particularly careful with the basketball either as they committed 15 turnovers for the game. Despite all that, they still did enough to win.

In their first-ever NCAA Tournament game (having just joined Division I in 1995), Hampton played tremendous defense all night against the Cyclones. Not only did they limit Iowa State to just 40.4 percent shooting on the night, but they also forced the Cyclones into 17 turnovers and, perhaps most importantly, got to the foul line 22 times on the night.

That all led to a tight game throughout and a shining moment to end it. Hampton’s Tarvis Williams sunk a shot in the paint with under seven seconds remaining to take a one-point lead. Tinsley and the Cyclones had one more shot, but he missed the potential game-winning lay-up, giving the Pirates a monstrously important victory for the program.