Last Sunday, the Kansas Chiefs overcame a 24-point first half deficit to take a halftime lead over the Houston Texans. This was reportedly the largest deficit ever overcome by a team leading at the half in NFL history.<\/p>\n
It’s kind of a silly record when you think about it. You don’t win the game by leading at halftime so who really cares if a team erases the deficit by halftime or a few minutes into the second half. However, in a win-or-go-home situation, it does say something about how the game unfolded. Normally a team would be dead trailing by 24, and not only were the Chiefs not dead, they had fully erased the deficit before the half.<\/p>\n
But who even thought about such a record before this game? I certainly didn’t. Now that I have I was curious what the record is in college basketball. Here are the biggest deficits overcome in a college game since the 2010 season.<\/p>\n
18 points<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n February 6, 2016. North Florida trailed Florida Gulf Coast 22-4, led at half 35-34. (Lost game 81-65.)<\/em> The halftime score was especially deceptive in this one as North Florida only led for two minutes and played most of both halves in a deep deficit.<\/p>\n January 19, 2019. Drexel trailed James Madison 22-4, led at half 33-31. (Won game 73-68.)<\/em> Within a 12-month period, Drexel pulled off the biggest comeback in D-I history and the 7th biggest first half comeback of the decade.<\/p>\n February 3, 2018. N.C. Central trailed Delaware State 27-9, led at half 40-37. (Won game 72-61.)<\/em> Delaware State won two games against Division-I teams and while I’m too lazy to confirm it, this had to be their biggest lead in a road game all season.<\/p>\n December 28, 2013. Syracuse trailed Villanova 25-7, led at half 38-34. (Won game 78-62.)<\/em> This was the Orange’s 12th win on the way to a 25-0 start…and a 3-6 finish.<\/p>\n 19 points<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n January 21, 2017. Oklahoma trailed Iowa State 28-9, led at half 30-29. (Lost game 92-87 in double overtime.)<\/em> The Cyclones scored one point over their final 16 possessions of the first half before combusting for a 40-point second half.<\/p>\n December 6, 2017. Lehigh trailed Yale 31-12, led at half 42-40. (Lost game 86-77.)<\/em> Teams on this list went 5-5 in these games with a -7 scoring differential. So much for momentum.<\/p>\n January 23, 2012. San Jose State trailed Cal State Bakersfield 23-4, led at half 36-35. (Won game 78-70.)<\/em> There was a time when San Jose State wasn’t bad at basketball. It wasn’t the 2012 season, though. They finished 9-22 and 1-13 in the WAC that season.<\/p>\n 20 points<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n November 15, 2009. Winston Salem State trailed UC Davis 20-0, led at half 42-41. (Lost game 99-79.)<\/em> This was during the four-year stretch where Winston Salem State played D-I basketball. The highest-ranked team they defeated was #197 Lipscomb.<\/p>\n January 17, 2015. South Dakota State trailed South Dakota 20-0, led at half 31-29. (Won game 71-57.)<\/em> A pre-Mike Daum era explosion by the Jackrabbits.<\/p>\n 21 points<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n February 22, 2012. Coppin State trailed Morgan State 38-17, led at half 46-45. (Lost game 91-80.)<\/em> No Pat Mahomes story here as Coppin State’s great comeback led to a fiery halftime speech by Todd Bozeman which motivated Morgan State to win the battle of Baltimore going away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last Sunday, the Kansas Chiefs overcame a 24-point first half deficit to take a halftime lead over the Houston Texans. This was reportedly the largest deficit ever overcome by a team leading at the half in NFL history. It’s kind of a silly record when you think about it. You don’t win the game by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2318"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2318"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2355,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2318\/revisions\/2355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}