As March madness continues on, many more upsets are set to happen between now and the finals on April 4th. With all of the upsets that have already occurred, nothing has been more surprising than the run that Syracuse has been able to pull off against some of the top ranked teams in the nation. Considering that Syracuse started as a 10th seed back at the start of the tournament, no one expected them to make it out of the first round, yet they have done much more than that by beating #1 seed UVA and advancing to their first final four since 2013. Syracuse does have a pretty good tournament resume dating back to the 50’s. They have been to 10 elite 8’s, 6 final four’s and they won it all in 2003. After surviving the first round against 7th ranked Dayton, they were lucky when Michigan State was upset by Middle Tennessee in the first round. This allowed Syracuse to go onto face Middle Tennessee instead of having to face one of the top teams in the nation.

There was a lot of controversy when it came to Syracuse even making the tournament in the first place. After finishing the regular season with a 23-13 record, it was starting to look like they wouldn’t even be invited to the tournament. But after beating Dayton and Middle Tennessee in the first two rounds, things started to brighten up a bit as they advanced to the sweet sixteen. When the Syracuse Gonzaga matchup was announced for the third round (the sweet sixteen) a lot of people thought Gonzaga was going to destroy Syracuse. However that was not the case as Syracuse surpassed Gonzaga in a close game with a 63-60 win. After making the elite 8, pretty much everyone thought that they would lose to #1 UVA, but yet again they defied the odds and caused one of the biggest upsets of the year.

Syracuse is slated to play #1 UNC in the East/Midwest finals on April 2nd at 8:49 pm. Just like the UVA game, most people will be picking UNC to dominate the uprising Syracuse team. However, as people can see so far, Syracuse is not shy for a good challenge as they set off for the final four.