Northern Arizona Is On The Verge Of Becoming One Of The Most Improbable Conference Championship Winners ... EVER
Axios.com- Northern Arizona (12-22) and Lafayette (11-22) play in their respective conference tournament finals Wednesday night.
Why it matters: If they win, they'll have the worst records of any teams to ever make the men's NCAA Tournament.
- No. 9 seed NAU will face No. 2 seed Montana State for the Big Sky Tournament title (11:30pm ET, ESPN2)
- No. 6 seed Lafayette will face No. 1 seed Colgate for the Patriot League title (7:30pm ET, CBSSN)
Context: The worst record of any NCAA Tournament team is 11-18, a mark shared by 1995 FIU, 1996 UCF and 1997 Fairfield.
These little conferences are really the best. Chaos at every turn involving teams most people didn't watch a second of all season. Meet Northern Arizona of the Big Sky Conference. A team who finished NINTH in the conference, and hadn't won 3 games in a row in 3 years.
And the years before that were never banner years for the Lumberjacks. Look at this list of losing seasons.
This is also the same team who lost to Embry Riddle Aeronautical Institute.
Somehow, someway this sorry ass team has become the hottest in the country. They started win over Idaho in the 8-9 matchup, then used a buzzer beater win over the 1 seed Eastern Washington.
A 9 seed knocking off the 1 is enough of a wild upset. Real feel good story. The 9 seed makes the semifinals, good for them. Except these lunatics weren't done and knocked off Montana.
Advertisement
They are now facing off against Montana St and trying to be literally the worst team in NCAA History to make the NCAA Tournament. How can you not love this sport ? How can you not love stories like this where a team who if had to tell the truth, probably didn't even think they had a shot themselves. These tournaments are the damn best. You think you have seen it all and here comes the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks ready to shock the world. I was once the King Of The Big Sky, but even I couldn't have dreamed this shit up. Only. in conference championship week can a team be a 9 seed in it's conference, 10 games under .500 and have a shot to be in the NCAA Tournament. I love this sport.