Against All Odds

Every college basketball junkie in the country is probably familiar with the “biggest upset in college basketball history,” the December night in 1982 when Honolulu’s little-known Chaminade University, a member of the time-honored NAIA with an enrollment of fewer than 900 students, pulled off one of the most highly-improbable upsets imaginable by knocking off the seemingly invincible Ralph Sampson-led Virginia Cavaliers --- the nation’s top-ranked team ---- by a score of 77-72, sending shockwaves throughout the college basketball world.

The result was utterly stunning. Most college basketball fans had never heard of Chaminade, which had upset cross-town rival Hawaii only five days earlier, handing the Rainbows their first loss to a small college since the 1978-79 season. Many couldn’t believe that undefeated Virginia (8-0), which had already drubbed the Duke Blue Devils by 13 points in Durham and toppled Patrick Ewing and the third-ranked Georgetown Hoyas 68-63 on the road three days later, had even bothered to schedule such a meaningless “stopover” contest against a small Hawaiian school.

The Terry Holland-coached Cavaliers had traveled to Japan for a couple of early season games that year, humbling 14th-ranked Houston, led by Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler, and annihilating the WAC’s Utah Utes by 23 points three nights later.

While most fans and sportswriters reacted in startled disbelief when they heard the Christmas Eve news that a little-known small college in Hawaii had knocked off the nation’s top team, it was a refreshing reminder that there was a time in college athletics when it was almost commonplace for a smaller college --- an NAIA member, NCAA Div. II or Div. III squad, an NCCAA (National Christian College Athletic Association) institution or one of the 72-member USCAA (United States Collegiate Athletic Association) schools to play a major power on the hardwood while occasionally pulling a Chaminade-style upset.

It happened more often than one might think, including at least once in the Big Dance when little Lebanon Valley College, a tiny private college located in southern central Pennsylvania with an enrollment of barely 450 students and a diminutive men’s basketball team --- the undermanned “Iron Midgets,” whose tallest player was a mere six-foot-one --- surprised everyone by advancing to the coveted Sweet Sixteen after stunning heavily-favored Fordham at the fabled Philadelphia Palestra in the opening round of the 1953 NCAA Tournament.

 It wasn't altogether uncommon for a smaller school to appear in the NCAA Tournament or the National Invitation Tournament in those days.

In addition to Lebanon Valley College, other small colleges that appeared in the Big Dance include Springfield College (1940), Catholic University (1944), Tufts University (1945), Williams College (1955), Wayne State University (1956) and the Larry Jeffries-led Trinity University Tigers (1969). 

The "Peach Fuzz Five," as Trinity's players were dubbed, played a predominantly small college schedule that season while beginning its short-lived transition to the major college ranks.  In fact, the Tigers were ranked No. 5 in the country in the College Division poll when they unexpectedly received a bid to the Big Dance in late February of 1969.  Trinity (19-5), located in San Antonio, Texas, had advanced to the Final Four of the College Division NCAA Tournament the previous March before losing to national runner-up Indiana State, 77-67, in the semifinals.

Arguably the more prominent and profitable of the two tourneys well into the mid-fifties, the National Invitation Tournament would occasionally reserve one of its bids for a deserving smaller school, as was the case with Washington & Jefferson in 1943 and Muhlenberg University in 1946, both of which advanced to the semifinals.

In 1951, the NIT's selection committee famously invited two small colleges to play in its 12-team tournament --- Dolph Stanley's blurry-quick Beloit Buccaneers and twice-beaten Lawrence Tech, a well-coached team that came within four points of a perfect regular season.

Incredibly, the NAIA's Oklahoma City Chiefs (now called the Stars) made eleven major college NCAA Tournament appearances and twice played in the NIT between 1952 and 1973 under the guiding influence of the legendary Abe Lemons and his capable predecessor Doyle Parrack.

Postseason tournaments aside, small colleges across the country --- and occasionally beyond --- frequently upset their major college opponents in those days and have continued to do so in the years following the NCAA's decision to segregate its member institutions into the so-called "University Division" (major college) and "College Division" (small college) ranks in 1957 and again later when the NCAA's governing body further bureaucratized collegiate athletics by creating three separate divisions in 1973, each with its own postseason NCAA Tournament.

Until the late 1950s, every school in the country, regardless of the size of its enrollment or the constraints of its athletic budget, had a fighting chance on the hardwood.

Though given far fewer opportunities to play Division I schools today than in the past --- and, sadly, many of those games are designated as "exhibition" contests --- small colleges continue to occasionally defeat their major college opponents, as was the case during the recent 2024-25 college basketball season when the NAIA's University of North Texas-Dallas upset Rice University 69-68 and Division II Michigan Tech --- "Nobody U." --- famously knocked off Doug Gottlieb's struggling UW Green Bay Phoenix 72-70.

Similar upsets have occurred in virtually every season since the late 1950s, often on multiple occasions in the same season.  Hundreds of those games are featured in Darcy Richardson's latest book.

In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, shortly after the NCAA divided the nation's schools into the "University" and "College" divisions by placing 156 schools in the major college ranks and 285 in the small college category, there were upsets galore, many of them involving traditional rivalries between schools which suddenly found themselves playing in two different divisions.

During the 1956-57 season --- the first season in which the nation's schools had been separated into major college and minor college categories --- dozens of small colleges knocked off University Division teams.