The 48-hour first round of March Madness featured top seeds taking care of business along with many bracket busting upsets. Here are the most shocking games of the 2024 first round of March Madness.
No. 11 Duquesne vs. No. 6 BYU
It didn’t take long for us to get our first upset within the tournament, as Duquesne picked up a 72-67 win over BYU, their first NCAA Tournament win since 1969.
The victory for the Dukes means coach Keith Dambrot, who coached LeBron James in high school, will continue for at least one more game. He announced over social media before the tournament that he was retiring after the season.
LeBron gave each of the Duquesne’s players new shoes before the first round match up. Some of the players even stepped out in their new gift from LeBron on the court during the BYU game.
No. 4 Auburn vs. No. 13 Yale
No. 13 Yale came back from a 10 point second-half deficit to upset No. 4 seed Auburn 78-76 on Friday after Auburn missed several chances to tie up the game.
A contributing factor was Auburn’s third highest scorer on the team Chad Baker-Mazara being ejected within the first five minutes of the game. He is the Tigers third-leading scorer on the team.
Yale’s John Poulakidas, however, led to his team victory with a game high 28 points. He was 6-of-9 from the three-point line and 10-of-15 from the field.
This is the first NCAA tournament victory for Yale since the Bulldogs upset No. 5 seed Baylor in 2016.
No. 3 Kentucky vs. No. 14 Oakland
For the second time in three years, University of Kentucky exited the NCAA tournament in the first round to a double digit seed. Oakland beat out Kentucky in an 80-76 upset.
The Wildcats were picked in 95% brackets in the ESPN Tournament challenge to beat Oakland. 74% had Kentucky making the Sweet 16, 29% had them reaching the final four, and 7% of brackets had them winning the national championship.
Jack Gohlke shined for Oakland in this game, becoming the fifth player in NCAA Tournament history with 10 or more made three’s in a game. Gohlke ended with a game high 32 points
No. 5 Wisconsin vs. No. 12 James Madison
Wisconsin’s 2023-2024 basketball season came to a crashing end with a 72-61 loss to James Madison. The Badgers turned the ball over on four of their first six possessions and ultimately led James Madison to a 17 point-lead through the first half.
Max Klesmit shooting was one positive for the Badgers with a total of 18 points scored throughout the game with three clutch three-pointers in the second-half.
However, they made a lot of errors, like turning the ball over a total of 19 times and only shooting at around 37% from the floor throughout the game.
Although the 2024 Tournament saw more perfect brackets make it through the first day than last year, these unbelievable upsets caused over 29 million people to lose their perfect bracket in 2024.
Only 2,000 brackets submitted to NCAA, ESPN, CBS, or Yahoo were still perfect going into the second day of the first round, but there are no longer any perfect brackets.
