No. 15 seed Princeton upsets No. 2 seed Arizona in NCAA first round

March Madness is in top form even before the first day of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament was halfway over.

No. 15 seed Princeton rocked the sports world on Thursday with a 59-55 victory over No. 2 seed Arizona in the first round of the South Regional in Sacramento, California.

The Tigers (22-9) scored the final nine points of the game to earn their first NCAA tournament victory in 25 years. Princeton’s last win was over UNLV in 1998 when coach Mitch Henderson was a player on the team. The last time the Tigers won as a double-digit seed was as a 13th seed in 1996 when they defeated defending national champion UCLA.

This is the third straight season that a 15 seed has upset a 2 seed with Saint Peter’s edging out Kentucky in last year’s tournament to spark a run to the Elite Eight.

Princeton advances to the second round where it will face seventh-seeded Missouri, which beat 10th-seeded Utah State 76-65 on Saturday.

( Furman stuns Virginia with a late 3-pointer in the NCAA’s first big upset )

Tosan Evbuomwan scored 15 points and added seven rebounds for the Ivy League champions.

Azuolas Tubelis scored 22 points for Arizona (28-7), which led by 12 points with 11:50 remaining in the game. Tubelis’ layup with 4:45 remaining gave the tournament champion Pac-12 Wildcats a 55-50 lead, but they never scored again.

Ryan Langborg’s layup gave the Tigers the lead for good at 56-55 with 2:03 remaining. Cade Pierce made two free throws to make it 58-55 with 21 seconds left. Courtney Ramey and Kerr Kriisa missed 3-pointers before Evbuomwan made a free throw with three seconds left to freeze.