This year’s edition of March Madness has already seen two major collapses, one from the North Carolina Tar Heels and the second from the Duke Blue Devils. The most recent of the two came on Sunday as Duke squandered a 19-point lead during their loss to the UConn Huskies. North Carolina’s loss came in the opening round of March Madness against VCU.
But as bad as those losses were, where do they stack up as far as the worst losses in the NCAA Tournament? Well both of those games are now the sixth largest blown leads in the tournament, as per Danny Neckel of UVA Sports Stats.
The largest blown lead in the NCAA Tournament came in 2012 when the Iona Gaels gave up a 25-point advantage in a First Four game. The next one after that was Maryland who gave up a 22-point lead in 2001. Cincinnati gave up a 22-point lead in 2018, West Virginia gave up a 21-point lead in 2005 and Tennessee squandered a 20-point lead in 2007 to round out the top-five.
So while the Duke loss and the North Carolina loss may not be the biggest blown leads in March Madness history, it still doesn’t make it any better for fans of those teams. North Carolina wasn’t expected to do much in the tournament, especially after the season-ending injury to Caleb Wilson.
But Duke, on the other hand, was expected to contend for the national championship. They earned one of the four No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament behind the stellar play of freshman star Cameron Boozer. But now it’s back to the drawing board amid Boozer’s probable departure for the NBA Draft.
