You know what they say: Sunday Funday.
Sunday was definitely a fun day in college hoops. We got not one, but two, enormous upsets: unranked North Carolina (12-9) over No. 1 Notre Dame (19-2) and No. 21 Utah (18-1) over No. 6 Stanford (17-2). Crazily enough, within four minutes of each other, the Twittersphere erupted for the Utes and Tarheels.
UTES WIN!!!!!!! Utah defeats No. 6 Stanford 75-68 FOR THE FIRST TIME IN PROGRAM HISTORY! #GoUtes #Elevate
— Utah Women’s Basketball (@UTAHWBB) January 27, 2019
🗣 Down goes No.1‼️#GoHeels pic.twitter.com/oV363rRm5f
— Carolina Women's Basketball (@uncwbb) January 27, 2019
Here are a few attention-grabbing statistics from each upset.
- This was Utah’s first-ever win over Stanford in program history
- Utah had lost the previous 11 games to Stanford by an average of 21.1 PPG
- The upset tied for the highest ranked win in school history for Utah
- Erika Bean hit a career-high five three-pointers for Utah, one of which put them up by three with just over a minute to go
- Per ESPN, North Carolina’s win snapped a 198-game losing streak by unranked teams against the No. 1 ranked team in the country
- Paris Kea scored a season-high 30 points (plus 10 assists) in the Tar Heels’ victory
- It was UNC’s first win against the top-ranked team, and third-ever, since beating Duke in February 2006
Considering they had three players with nearly 20 points, shot just under 50% from the field as a team on the night, earned 42 points in the paint and outscored the Tarheels in all but the third quarter, it’s almost shocking the Fighting Irish didn’t win. North Carolina found a way by capitalizing on turnovers (21 points to Notre Dame’s 9) and shooting better from three-point land (40.7% to 25.7%). Home court advantage certainly helps, too.
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For Utah versus Stanford, the story was a little different. The Utes flat-out had a stronger night. They’ve been solid all year long and were right on brand against the Cardinal. Coming into Sunday, they were shooting close to 48% from the field and 38% from three. Utah finished 11-28 from beyond the arc, 3-4 in the fourth quarter, to give them just the boost they needed. It didn’t come easy—given the 14 lead changes and 12 times the game was tied.
It’s always a joy when upsets like this happen before we even hit February. The Top 25 continues to get more and more interesting. Unlike previous seasons, there isn’t a clear number one. But numbers 2-25is also seeing a lot of movement in 2019.