Biggest upsets

For what it's worth, here's ESPN's Top 10.
http://espn.go.com/page2/s/list/topupsets/010525.html

1. U.S. beats Soviets Olympic ice hockey, 1980

2. New York Jets defeat Baltimore Colts, Super Bowl III, 1969

3. Villanova tops Georgetown to win 1985 NCAA championship

4. Buster Douglas KOs Mike Tyson for heavyweight championship, 1990

5. Man O' War loses only race, to 100-to-1 shot Upset, 1919

6. Denver Nuggets eliminate Seattle SuperSonics in 1994 NBA playoffs

7. Jack Fleck beats Ben Hogan at 1955 U.S. Open

8. New York Mets defeat Baltimore Orioles for 1969 World Series

9. Rulon Gardner overpowers Alexander Karelin for Greco-Roman wrestling gold, 2000

10. N.C. State knocks off Houston to win 1983 NCAA championship

 

Dan Gable losing his final match?

Milan High School?

George Mason making the Final Four?

 

Nuggets over Sonics at SIX? Ahead of the '69 Mets and N.C. State-Houston? It's a nice upset, sure, but nowhere near the top 10 (team with a defensively dominant center wins three of five, not exactly stop-the-presses material given the company it's keeping).

 

Correct MM. Four-of-seven, then it's plausable, but not a three-of-five.

Hell, Golden State over Dallas has to be there before Denver/Seattle.

 

Totally agree that USA Hockey 1980 takes the belt. I have the same reservations about Jets over Colts that I do about Clay over Liston. Was it really an upset or was there just not enough known about the Jets and the AFL's talent? In both cases (Jets and Clay), the supposed upseter went on to do it again and again. Can that really be considered an upset.

Villanova/Georgetown is definitely on the list.

 

Maybe not for top spot, but if you're looking at filling out a list ...

An eigth seeded Edmonton Oilers team making it to the Stanley Cup finals only to sloe in Game 7 to the 'Canes. A run that included several huge upsets over the first seeded Wings, the Sharks, and the Ducks.

There's also the Calgary Flames run from the year before, becoming the first team in NHL history to knock off three division champions en route to the finals.

What about Diamondbacks over Yankees for the World Series
or either of the Marlins championships.

Or Mike Weir winning the Masters in 2003. Course set up for long bombing righties, ahem Tiger Woods, and little known finesse hitting, lefty from Canada beats 'em all. And has done basically jack shit since.

1999 Texas A&M over the UT longhorns inthe bonfire game, UT, if I remember correctly, were considered contenteders for a BCS game, and A&M was juyst trying to overcome a major tragedy.

 

exactamundo

 

I know it's a sore spot with a lot of people, but . . .

. . . everybody mentions U.S. over USSR hockey in 1980,

and nobody mentions USSR basketball over U.S. in 1972?

A nation's first loss in the sport it invented has to be up there, clocks and officials and suspect timeouts granted be damned.

 

Super Bowl V was NOT won by an AFL team. It was won by the Colts who moved over from the NFL.

 

Your semantics aside, Super Bowl V was certainly lost by an NFC team.

 

Ty, the AFL wasn't an unknown. They'd played two Super Bowls and they had both been blowouts in favor of the NFL. People thought the league was clearly inferior to the NFL, and there was no reason to think an AFL team was suddenly going to rise up and beat the Colts. You have to remember, too, that the Colts weren't just the NFL champs, they were considered a truly great team. The Jets, btw, were nothing like Clay, because they didn't go on to prove they were a great team. They never made it back to the Super Bowl.

Check some lists of the greatest sports upsets ever and I'll bet that SB III is in the top 2 or 3 on just about every one.

 

The game was fixed. Flat-out fixed. A buck-toothed Brit foghorn, Dr. William Jones, saw his chance to take down the mighty U.S., and took it upon himself to make it happen. If it had taken the Soviets 15 tries to make the winning basket, they would have gotten 15 tries.

Of course, the U.S. had duly cooperated by "playing the right way," so the score was 49-48 with three seconds to play, handing the Soviets and Jones the loaded gun with all the bullets they needed.