Middle Tennessee, a team with very few quality wins on the season, was slotted as a 15-seed in the NCAA Tournament after surviving a crazy Conference USA title game to win the league's automatic bid. The Blue Raiders had not played a team like No. 2 seed Michigan State yet this season, but they showed from the opening tip they were the team most ready to play in a 90-81 upset victory in St. Louis.
The Spartans never led, falling behind 15-2 in the first minutes and never fully recovered against a Middle Tennessee team that burned the nets down -- not literally, but there were net issues that caused delays in the final minutes -- with 57.