The 13 greatest first-round upsets in sports history

Chicago is temporarily the center of the sports universe. The Bulls are up 2-0 on the top seed Boston Celtics and looking for the rare No. 8-over-No. 1 NBA upset. Meanwhile, the NHL’s Blackhawks have the shoe skate on the other foot as they trail 3-0 in their first-round series to the eighth-seeded Nashville Predators.

As the NBA and NHL brace for bracket-busting upsets, Fox Sports looks back at the 13 greatest first-round upsets in sports history.

There are greater upsets in NCAA tournament history, including Duke’s loss two years later to Mercer, which by a strict basketball definition was “bigger” than this. But the first is always the worst and most surprising. Duke had only been ousted in the first round twice in the previous 26 years and neither upset was all that seismic – the Blue Devils lost as a No. 8 seed in 1996 and a No. 6 seed in 2007. But as a top five seed? Duke was unbeatable in the first round and was a doubly impressive 19-5 in second. The Blue Devils simply didn’t lose early in the NCAA tournament.

So with a virtual home game in Greensboro against a lowly Patriot League team, the streak figured to extend. But Lehigh’s C.J McCollum was the best player on the court and Coach K’s team, as it often does in NCAA tournament losses, proved the old adage true – live by three, die by the three.

Forget what you think you know about the Golden State Warriors. In 2007, the team was as far from the Steph/Klay/Draymond/KD juggernaut as can be. They hadn’t made the playoffs in 13 years and had a five-year stretch where every season finished with under 21 wins. To compare: In 2015 they won 72 games, in the four seasons between 1998-2002 they won 78. Total.

Meanwhile, the Mavericks led the mighty West with a whopping 67 wins in Dirk Nowitzki’s MVP campaign, but it was all for naught as they became the first No. 1 seed in history to lose to a No. 8 in a seven-game series.

Yes, even the drought-era Cubs could be upset victims, even if not entirely shocking ones. The Cubbies led the league with 97 wins and were playing a Dodgers team that had been below .500 one month before while in the midst of an eight-game losing streak. Maybe 2008 wouldn’t break the curse, but rarely was there going to be a better chance. So, of course Chicago got swept in three, two of which weren’t competitive. Stars slumped (Alfonso Soriano), pitchers couldn’t find the plate (Ryan Dempster) and an entire roster had butterfingers (four errors alone in Game 2). And now none of it matters. Nine years has rarely felt so long ago.

Memphis had never won a playoff game before – the Grizz were 0-12 in their previous three trips. Yet they beat the Spurs with relative ease, taking the series in six after barely losing in Game 5. San Antonio won six games less than the aforementioned 2007 Mavericks but this upset is far greater given the Grizzlies’ historic woefulness and, more importantly, the fact that such things don’t happen to Gregg Popovich’s Spurs. Two years later, San Antonio would exact revenge, beating the Grizzlies in a tight Western Conference Finals.

All year long, as chronicled by John Feinstein’s famed A Season on the Brink, Bob Knight had ragged on his ’86 Hoosiers for not showing enough toughness. They lived up to those expectations against a surprisingly game Cleveland State team, succumbing to the Vikings’ full-court pressure. Making this loss even bigger is the fact that Indiana won the national title the next season and then bookended everything with another first-round loss in 1988 (to Richmond).

It was the teams’ third-straight year facing off in the playoffs, with the first two characterized by the brutal, defensive games and punctuated by on-court brawls, including the one where Jeff Van Gundy tried to beat up Alonzo Mourning’s leg. The ’99 Knicks were an injured, New York-like mess. Miami was the best team in the strike-shortened year but Allan Houston hit a buzzer beater in Game 5 of the best-of-five series to give the Knicks an unlikely win that kicked off a surprise run to the NBA Finals. Was it worth it, Knick fans?

The Royals were bad. And not just “oh, Ned Yost likes to bunt and play the matchups too much” bad, but legitimately not good. They were the second-worst hitting team in the AL with a good, but not great, pitching staff. The Angels, meanwhile, had Mike Trout, Albert Pujols and the top offense in the game. But the two superstars combined to bat .125 and KC swept, en route to a surprise World Series appearance.

Nadal suffered a shocking four-set loss to world No. 135 Steve Darcis in the opening round of Wimbledon, a week after winning his eighth French Open. As with most upsets, fans were left waiting for the run that never came. Nadal had numerous attempts to put Darcis on the ropes but the Belgian never blinked and instead appeared to be the most poised player on the court. One year earlier, Nadal had lost to No. 100 Lukas Rosol in the second round. Surely it wasn’t going to happen again?

The No. 8 seed had never won a series since the playoffs expanded in 1984. Dikembe Mutombo wagged his finger at such history, leading the 42-40 Nuggets to a win over a SuperSonics team that got out to a 2-0 lead before losing three straight, two in Denver. “I don’t like to be rude, but these are the playoffs,” said Mutombo. “Nobody invites you into their house.” I’m not sure what it means, but if Mutombo speaks it, it must by true.

The Spiders became the first team to pull the heralded No. 15 over No. 2 upset in the NCAA tournament, shocking Jim Boeheim’s Syracuse team in a first-round game in College Park. Two years later, Santa Clara would stun Arizona in the second-ever 15 vs. 2 upset with a team led by future NBA MVP Steve Nash.

The San Jose Sharks were in their third year of existence and making their playoff debut after a sub-.500 season. All that waited was the mighty, 100-point Red Wings. The Sharks had gone 11-71-2 in the previous season. Easy, right?

Somehow the Sharks came through to win in seven. That game was their second road victory of the series, something that would have been unthinkable as recently as eight months earlier. In the team’s first two seasons, they’d won a total of three road games in each.

You’ll note this is the only NHL series on the list. And, not to give away the rest of the list, you won’t find any NFL game on it. Why?

Pro football and its sudden-death playoff system doesn’t lend itself to upsets even when shaky teams win their division and get to host a wild-card game. Yes, the 7-9 Seattle team beating the Saints in 2010 was surprising, but is any win at that tin-roofed stadium that much of an upset? The teams are too evenly matched at that level and the randomness makes wins such as this a regularity. In terms of NFL upsets, it’s pretty much Super Bowls III and XXXV and that’s it. Neither, obviously was a first rounder.

It’s the same with hockey. The Preds beating the Blackhawks in a No. 8 vs. No. 1 series would be surprising, sure, but hot goaltending has gotten many average teams deep into the playoffs. Upsets are less surprising as a result.

Legendary coach Pete Carril had announced his retirement one week before and his Princeton players made sure to send him out in style. Six years after coming within inches of beating Georgetown in what would still be the only No. 16 over No. 1 upset ever, Princeton used one of Carril’s patented back-door cuts with 3.8 seconds left to take a lead on defending national champion UCLA. There have a handful of greater seeding upsets but none carried as much weight as this one.

For the first time in the 108-year history of Wimbledon, a defending champion was ousted in the opening round of the tournament. The great Steffi Graf fell in straight sets to 30-year-old journeywoman Lori McNeil, who developed her game on the public courts of Houston and used a strong volley attack to stun the uncharacteristically tentative German No. 1. She was unseeded at Wimbledon but No. 22 in the world. (This was before 32 players were seeded at majors.)

In the previous seven years, Graf had gone on one of the most dominant runs in tennis history. From 1987-94 she played 28 Grand Slam tournaments, winning 15, making the finals of 22, the semifinals of 26 and the quarterfinals in every one. Her record was an unbelievable 173-13. Take Martina and Monica Seles out of the equation and she was 170-7, with all but two of her losses coming to top-10 players (and those two both were by No. 12 in the world).

Even more amazing, in the previous 10 years, Graf had only twice lost in the first round of any tournament. One of those – at the 1992 Virginia Slims Championships – came to McNeil.

It’s without a doubt the greatest first-round upset in history.