14th-seeded UAB Blazers upset No. 9 Iowa State

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The UAB Blazers may not have a football program anymore. They do have the first big upset of the NCAA tournament and hope they can give their university something to rally around.

William Lee scored the last four points for 14th-seeded UAB, and the Blazers knocked off third-seeded Iowa State 60-59 on Thursday in their opening game in the NCAA Tournament. It’s the third straight year a 14 seed has upset a No. 3 seed, and Georgia State followed up by joining the list within an hour with a 57-56 win over Baylor.

The Blazers (20-15) came in with the third-youngest team in the NCAA tournament and with nobody having played in this tournament before. They wound up winning the program’s first NCAA game since 2005 and ran over to celebrate in front of the fans of a school that shut its football program down in December.

“For us, it was just huge,” UAB junior Robert Brown said. “We come here, not just to play games, but to actually make some noise and to win some games. To be able to do that and win for Birmingham, win for Coach (Jerod) Haase, it’s a great feeling.”

It set off a wild celebration in the Blazers’ locker room.

“We were celebrating because that was a really big win for us with us being the underdogs,” UAB guard Tyler Madison said.

Haase estimated maybe four or five of the Blazers didn’t realize a month ago that the Conference USA tournament champion earned an automatic berth, while another had never watched a selection show before Sunday.

“You’re a product of your thoughts,” Haase said. “There’s been more talk right now about 14 seed or upsets than we’ve said the entire year. Our thoughts have been, when we play well, we think we can compete with anybody, and those thoughts have been expressed to our team, and our team has made the choice to believe in that.”

The ninth-ranked Cyclones finished 25-9.