Top 10 NCAA Tournament First Round Upsets

The bands. The buzzer-beaters. The unproductive offices. Must be the start of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. To mark this year's edition, we scoured the record books to select the 10 best first round upsets in tournament history

(15) Richmond 73, (2) Syracuse 69, 1991

Doug Mills / AP
  • Print

Dick Tarrant's Richmond Spiders were famous giant killers: in 1984, Richmond downed Charles Barkley and Auburn; four years later, defending champ Indiana got caught up in their web. The '91 upset of Syracuse, however, was Richmond's greatest hit. The Spiders became the first 15-seed to down a number two seed. More importantly, it was the first year that CBS had the rights to the opening round of the tournament. Richmond shocked the world, in prime time, on network television, and CBS has paid the NCAA billions to keep every game on its airwaves since.

View the full list for "Top 10 NCAA Tournament First Round Upsets"