No. 13 Furman beating No. 4 Virginia wasn’t enough madness for Thursday’s opening day of the NCAA Tournament as the No. 15 Princeton Tigers out of the Ivy League upset the No. 2 ranked Arizona Wildcats 59-55.
Coming into the NCAA Tournament, the Wildcats were coming off a Pac-12 championship and were among the popular picks to make a deep run in the tournament to the Final Four and potentially even a National Championship winning run. Now, like most brackets, that idea has been busted.
Princeton came in with a fantastic defensive game plan, not allowing Arizona to get any strong looks from beyond the arc, and played suffocating defense within the perimeter. The Wildcats shot 42.1% from the floor in the game but were just 3-for-16 from three-point range. After averaging over 80 points per game this season, the Wildcats’ 55 points on Thursday was their season low.
The Princeton Tigers will now move on to the Round of 32 to take on the Missouri Tigers on Saturday. Missouri moved on earlier on Thursday with a 76-65 win over the Utah State Aggies.
This of course isn’t the first time that Princeton has found itself in the NCAA Tournament spotlight. The Tigers back in 1996 as a No. 13 seed upset the No. 4 seeded UCLA Bruins in the Round of 64 by a final score of 43-41. The Bruins were at the time the defending national champions.
Notably, current Princeton head coach Mitch Henderson was a starting guard on that 1995-1996 Princeton team.