The N.C.A.A. Men’s Basketball Tournament is a place where the amazing can happen. Even the smallest colleges in the country can overturn what seem like god-like basketball colleges known worldwide. On March 27, 2011, one of these upsets occurred in San Antonio, Texas.
The Kansas Jayhawks of Kansas University in Lawrence, Kansas are legendary for their basketball heritage. The man who invented basketball, James Naismith, was the head coach of the Jayhawks Men’s basketball team. Wilt Chamberlain, one of the most famous NBA Hall-of Famers of all time, who holds over fifty NBA records, also went to Kansas and played for the Jayhawks. The Jayhawks have also gone on to win five National Championships. Needless to say, the Jayhawks are always a formidable force to play against.
All this was running through the head of the head coach of the Virginia Commonwealth University Men’s Basketball Team, Shaka Smart, as he was preparing to take on the Jayhawks for a spot in the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament. He knew that, if he could throw off the Jayhawks’s shooting game, he could get a win. That’s exactly what occurred.
The VCU Rams, who were picked by many not to make it past the second round of the tournament, defeated, arguably, one of the best basketball teams in America.
To defeat them, the Rams were able to throw off the Jayhawks’s shooting game to a mind-blowing three-point factor of 2/21. At the half, the Rams were up by fourteen points. To America, this seemed to be a major upset in America’s College Basketball History. How many Americans knew of this small-town college team in Virginia? To have a basketball team so unpopular and unheard of beat the legendary Jayhawks? Clearly this had to be seen, to be believed.
During the break at halftime, the head coach of the Jayhawks, Bill Self, must have had an epiphany with his team because during the second-half, that fourteen-point deficit was cut down to two points. Even though the Jayhawks were able to play much better, they lost 71 to 61 to VCU and left San Antonio with broken hearts and beaten dreams of a sixth NCAA Championship. Clearly, David bested the mighty Goliath by using his intellect and finding Goliath’s soft spot. Forever in the records of college basketball, will this moment be remembered as the time the VCU Rams defeated the mighty Kansas Jayhawks.