The Arizona Wildcats were not supposed to be in this year’s tournament. Apparently someone forgot to actually tell them.

The Wildcats are the lowest seed remaining in the tournament, by an astounding seven seeds, and will attempt to become just the second 12-seed in tournament history to advance to the Elite Eight.

Every year, it seems that one of the “bubble teams” makes a deep run in the tournament. That’s what makes March Madness so great; once you make the tournament, whether you deserved your spot or not, you get a chance to play and advance.

With the tournament in full swing, and Arizona having a chance to win and advance, we take a look at some great performances of bubble teams of the past. For our purposes, only NCAA tournaments since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985 were considered. Will Arizona play their way onto this list over the weekend? We’ll have to wait and see, but in the meantime, we take a look at the Top 10 Best Bubble Team Performances.

In 2002, the talented but underachieving Missouri Tigers were forced to sweat out Selection Sunday, unaware of their fate. The Tigers, who finished 21-11 (13-3 in the Big XII), managed to squeak into the tournament, earning a 12-seed. Led by forwards Arthur Johnson and Kareem Rush, along with sharp-shooting guard Clarence Gilbert, the Tigers had the weapons needed to make a run in the tournament. Once they were dancing, they proved they belonged, becoming the first 12-seed to ever make it to the Elite Eight.

Mizzou knocked off #5 Miami, #4 Ohio State, and #8 UCLA, before falling to conference rival Oklahoma in the Elite Eight, 81-75. To this day, the Tigers’ magical run in 2002 is still the best performance by a 12-seed in tournament history.

While Missouri’s journey was magical, the run made by LSU in 1988 was practically miraculous.

Midway through the 1985 season, the LSU Tigers were ranked 8th in the nation, and eyeing at least a 2-seed in the tournament. But when Selection Sunday came at the end of the year, LSU wound up an 11-seed. What happened? Basically, everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong.

LSU started the season 14-0, but ended-up 26-12, barley even earning their tournament bid after they lost 11 of the final 19 regular season games. The Tigers endured an NCAA investigation into their program, academic ineligibility, a player skipping town, the flu and yes, even small pox. They must have been waiting for it to start raining frogs.

Fortunately, LSU learned to deal with the adversity, and was able to rely on their talent. (It also helped that they got to play the first two rounds in Baton Rouge.) Their run to the Final Four was exciting from the very beginning. It took double-overtime for LSU to defeat #6 Purdue, and then they squeaked by both #3 Memphis and #2 Georgia Tech. But their biggest upset came in the regional final, where they knocked off heavily favored, and number-one seeded, Kentucky to become the first ever 11-seed to make it all the way to the Final Four.

It was there that the clock struck midnight for the Cinderella Tigers, with a loss to #2 Louisville, the eventual National Champion. But that loss could not damper one of the most remarkable seasons in school history, and one of the most memorable runs in the tournament. “We had the hardest road to the Final Four, and we got here through a democratic system of playing games,” head coach Dale Brown said. “We're an example of what makes America great.”

If LSU showed why this country is great, then everyone must have had an inflated sense of patriotism in 2002, when the George Mason Patriots made it all the way to the Final Four, capturing the hearts and imagination of Americans along the way.

Few forget George Mason’s run in 2006, something so unbelievable that it would make Cinderella blush. Few remember that it almost never happened.

The Patriots had their best season in the program’s history, ending the year with 23 regular season wins, but failed to win their conference tournament. While the Colonial Athletic Association is not regularly considered a two-bid league, Mason thought they deserved one of the at-large bids – and the committee agreed, rewarding the Patriots with an 11-seed. It marked the first time the mid-major CAA sent two teams to dance in 20 years, and sent Billy Packer into a tizzy, saying a team like Mason did not deserve to be there. Open mouth, insert foot.

Mason began the tournament with a 65-60 win over 6-seed Michigan State; the Spartans hadn’t exited the tournament until the Final Four the previous year. In the second round, against defending champion #3 North Carolina, they fell behind early, but managed to ride hot shooting to a 65-60 victory. After a Sweet Sixteen win over #7 Wichita State, George Mason faced top-seeded UConn. George Mason held a four-point lead with 17 seconds to go, but gave up an easy basket, and then a reverse layup from under the basket by UConn guard Denham Brown sent the game into overtime. The Patriots refused to deflate; they took a four-point lead in the overtime, and hung on for the victory.

Eventual champion Florida beat George Mason in the national semis, but the Patriots had the satisfaction of being the only school in tournament history to defeat the defending champions from the previous two years (UNC ’05, UConn ’04).

For the record, that’s a 12-seed in the Elite Eight and two 11-seeds advancing all the way to the Final Four. Not bad for a bunch of teams that supposedly didn’t even deserve to be there.