15 biggest NCAA Tournament upsets of all time

11. No. 15 Santa Clara over No. 2 Arizona, 64-61 (1993, first round)

Lute Olsen’s Arizona Wildcats had redemption on their minds entering the 1993 NCAA Tournament. The previous year, his team had been upset by a 14-seed, East Tennessee State. After suffering that loss, the Wildcats were hungry to prove themselves as they entered March Madness as a No. 2 seed and with a great chance — so it seemed — to make a deep run into the tournament. Steve Nash and the Santa Clara Broncos didn’t care about any of that.

Seeing Steve Nash’s name now that he’s a Hall-of-Famer makes this upset seem a little more likely. At the time, however, the thought of this one occurring was not something anyone really considered. After all, the Broncos were just 19-11 in the regular season and Arizona was 24-3 at that point and seemingly in line for big things.

Even more wild about this upset knowing what we do now is that Nash actually didn’t play well coming off the bench for Santa Clara. Though he played 30 minutes and had seven rebounds and four assists, he shot just 1-of-7 from the field and eight of his 10 points came at the charity stripe. Instead, it was Pete Eisenrich and DeWayne Lewis who led the way for the Broncos.

What really spurned on this upset, though, was defense by Santa Clara and a shooting collapse by the Wildcats. Arizona was actually up by double digits in the second half, but went on to shoot just 25 percent from the field in the second half, which ultimately led to an upset loss for the second-straight year.