In 1985, the NCAA Men’s Division 1 Basketball Tournament was expanded from 53 schools to 64 for the first time. Yet even with the larger field, nobody ever expected eighth seed Villanova to snag the national title. During the championship game, the Villanova Wildcats made a remarkable 78.6% of their shots to beat defending NCAA champions Georgetown (a team that included future NBA star Patrick Ewing) 66-64. This was an outcome so shocking that even the Philadelphia Daily News said Villanova should have had a “better chance peddling space heaters in hell” than becoming national champions. To date, the 1985 Wildcats remain the lowest ranked team to win the entire NCAA tournament. This year, they lost in the first round.
