Virginia just became the first team in the history of the men’s NCAA tournament to lose to a 16 seed.
The last THREE times Virginia’s reached No. 1 in either major sport, it lost a big upset right away
Virginia’s only No. 1 ranking in football ended in quick heartbreak, while UVA hoops has now lost arguably the two biggest upsets ever.
It gets worse: UMBC won a blowout.
It gets worse: Virginia was the overall No. 1.
It gets worse: this is the third straight time Virginia has been upset right after hitting No. 1 in football or men’s basketball.
1982
The Cavaliers, led by three-time player of the year and future Hall of Famer Ralph Sampson, had been the AP No. 1 for less than a month. They’d beaten then-No. 3 Georgetown and then-No. 14 Houston. And they traveled to Hawaii to face the Chaminade Silverswords, a fill-in for a game UVA had hoped to schedule against Hawaii.
The Silverswords were NAIA, the association of college athletic programs that’s totally separate from the NCAA. This is a little like 2018 Virginia traveling to play Texas Wesleyan or something.
And the No. 1 Hoos lost, 77-72. Very, very, very few people saw it happen live, but SI called it college hoops’ biggest upset ever. The Silverswords’ coach called the whole thing “impossible.”
Virginia wouldn’t be No. 1 in basketball again until 2018.
1990
This was nowhere near as MONUMENTAL as the two hoops upsets, but that it ruined Virginia’s most promising football season ever means it joins the list.
On Oct. 16, Virginia reached No. 1 in football for the first time ever, with future All-Pro WR Herman Moore powering maybe the country’s best offense to that point. The Hoos stomped Wake Forest and prepared to host out-of-nowhere No. 16 Georgia Tech.
Virginia’s 28-14 halftime lead made total sense. Tech’s 24-10 surge didn’t, nor did the Jackets’ last-minute drive to set up a long field goal.
GT went on to split the national title with Colorado. Virginia went on to finish 8-4 and has since never ranked better than No. 6 at any point in a season.
2018
Virginia hit AP No. 1 in mid-February and locked up the overall No. 1 on Selection Sunday.
UMBC ranked No. 116 in RPI, No. 188 in KenPom, and No. 177 in Sagarin. The Retrievers had lost to 13-19 Stony Brook not even a month prior. They’d lost to Albany by 44 points not even a month before that.
And then they blacked out against the country’s best defense, putting up 53 points in the second half as Virginia plodded around the court.
The Hoos now have a case for losing the two biggest upsets in college basketball history, with both games contending for the title of biggest upset in college sports history and/or basketball history.
The moral of the story
Virginia should never, ever, ever reach No. 1 in football or men’s basketball.
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