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Lehigh Beats Duke

March 28, 2012 by · Comments Off on Lehigh Beats Duke 

Lehigh Beats Duke, And sit back and enjoy this one. Because 10 — or 15 — years from now, they still might be talking about Friday the 16th as the day the 15s rose up and produced one of the greatest episodes in NCAA tournament history.

First, 15th-seeded Norfolk State knocked off Missouri. Later, another 15, Lehigh, beat Duke. And, just for good measure, No. 13 Ohio beat Michigan 65-60, making this the first time that three teams seeded 13th or higher all won on the same day.

“We messed up some brackets! We messed up some brackets!” Norfolk senior Kyle O’Quinn exclaimed after he spearheaded Norfolk’s 86-84 upset over Missouri. And then, in a moment of exhilarated candor: “We even messed up my bracket.”

He didn’t know the half of it.

Because while the Norfolk celebration was winding down, Lehigh — enrollment 4,700 and based in Bethlehem, Pa. — knocked off a team you might have heard of: Duke. Final score, 75-70.

Before Friday, there had been a total of four 2-15 upsets since the bracket was expanded to 64 teams in 1985. After Friday, there are six.

“I told them they needed to suspend disbelief,” Lehigh coach Brett Reed said. “Because there are so many naysayers, so many prognosticators.”

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