The boys’s basketball group at Fairleigh Dickinson College, a non-public commuter faculty with a campus in Teaneck, N.J., went 4-22 final season. Three of its finest gamers and its coach have been competing in Division II. And the Knights, enjoying within the Northeast Convention, didn’t even win their convention match, a title they usually would have wanted to make the N.C.A.A. match.
And but, Fairleigh Dickinson turned simply the second No. 16 seed ever to topple a 1 within the males’s match, by taking down Purdue, 63-58, within the first spherical on Friday. (In 2018, top-seeded Virginia misplaced to the College of Maryland, Baltimore County. Within the ladies’s match, No. 16 seed Harvard beat No. 1 Stanford in 1998.)
“I like our guys — they’re robust, they’re gritty, the play their tails off,” Fairleigh Dickinson’s first-year coach, Tobin Anderson, stated after the win. “That’s unbelievable. We simply shocked the world, and it couldn’t occur to a greater bunch of fellows, a greater bunch of followers, my household, the entire thing.”
So, who’re these guys, and the way large a deal is that this?
This 12 months’s group is comparatively new.
After 9 years at St. Thomas Aquinas School, a Division II group in Sparkill, N.Y., Anderson was employed at Fairleigh Dickinson, a faculty of fewer than 8,000 college students in Teaneck, N.J.
Anderson changed Greg Herenda, who was fired after a four-win season by which F.D.U. completed ninth within the Northeast Convention. Anderson introduced three of his gamers with him to Fairleigh Dickinson: guards Demetre Roberts and Grant Singleton and ahead Sean Moore, who poured in 19 factors towards Purdue whereas enjoying Friday night time in his hometown, Columbus, Ohio.
“Man, I felt wonderful as a result of I didn’t actually suppose we was going to be right here at this level within the season,” stated Moore, who hit an enormous straightaway 3-pointer to provide his group a 61-56 lead with simply over a minute left.
The 6-foot-4 Moore, the 5-foot-8 Roberts (from Mount Vernon, N.Y.) and the 5-9 Singleton (from Sumter, S.C.) aren’t any strangers to the insanity of March. Below Anderson, St. Thomas Aquinas gained three straight East Coast Convention tournaments and appeared within the spherical of 16 three straight occasions within the Division II N.C.A.A. males’s match.
Roberts believes that the three have made an announcement this season concerning the high quality of gamers from Division II.
“I don’t actually see a distinction between DII and DI,” he stated earlier this month.
Fairleigh Dickinson solely made the sector as a result of one other group was ineligible.
The Knights may not even be collaborating on this 12 months’s N.C.A.A. match have been it not for the ineligibility of Merrimack School. Merrimack beat F.D.U. on its residence court docket, 67-66, to win the Northeast Convention championship sport, however can’t take part within the match as a result of it’s within the fourth 12 months of a transition from Division II to Division I.
The transitional interval is a typical however generally tense concern in faculty athletics, with universities agreeing to carry off on postseason play as they construct up their services and different infrastructure to adjust to the necessities of their new division.
“I hope shifting ahead for the children’ sake, one thing is finished about it as a result of for 4 years what you’re doing is, you’re taking a child’s entire profession out of the equation,” Merrimack coach Joe Gallo stated within the lead-up to the convention title sport.
Merrimack ended its season on a 14-game successful streak.
This upset might have been foreshadowed by one other Purdue upset final 12 months.
May Fairleigh Dickinson be the subsequent St. Peter’s? Its gamers certain hope so, and Purdue may suppose so. The Boilermakers have been upset by tiny St. Peter’s out of Jersey Metropolis, N.J., within the spherical of 16 a 12 months in the past.
Now, a 12 months later, two different Jersey underdogs — No. 15 seed Princeton and No. 16 seed F.D.U. — have three mixed N.C.A.A. match wins. And Fairleigh Dickinson is simply 13 miles away from St. Peter’s.
Fairleigh Dickinson has a protracted solution to go to match the entire match run by St. Peter’s, although. That group final season reached the spherical of 8 earlier than being stopped by North Carolina.
The Knights are among the many many mid-major packages which wish to continuously check themselves towards larger colleges. F.D.U. this season misplaced to Loyola-Chicago, Pittsburgh and St. Peter’s however beat St. Joseph’s of the Atlantic 10 Convention and Columbia of the Ivy League.
The final No. 16 over No. 1 upset was 5 years in the past.
That sport, when the College of Maryland, Baltimore County beat Virginia in 2018, the highest total seed within the match, was a lot, a lot totally different than Fairleigh Dickinson’s win on Friday night time.
Primarily as a result of it was an utter rout, 74-54. A lot of the second half was a celebration for the Retrievers, who swaggered up and down the court docket understanding that they have been barely being challenged.
Again then, U.M.B.C.’s social media group gained notoriety for his or her witty banter, particularly on Twitter. And it punctuated Friday night time’s upset with a memorable second from “The Simpsons.”
A footnote: U.M.B.C. misplaced its second-round sport that match to Kansas State.
Instantly, this ranks among the many all-time upsets in March Insanity.
In fact, this stuff may be subjective, however there’s an argument that Fairleigh Dickinson’s win over Purdue might rank as the best upset within the historical past of the match. Not like U.M.B.C. in 2018, F.D.U. didn’t win its convention match, and it got here out of the First 4, the play-in video games that require a win to get into the spherical of 64.
U.M.B.C. completed its win over Virginia by a a lot bigger margin, however it had been a 20-point underdog. Fairleigh Dickinson was a 23-point underdog to Purdue.
The Knights are additionally the shortest group in Division 1 — with a mean peak of 6-foot-1, in keeping with KenPom.com — rating 363rd out of 363 groups. Purdue featured 7-foot-4 Zach Edey, a contender for nationwide participant of the 12 months honors.
What’s subsequent for Fairleigh Dickinson?
The Knights will meet No. 9-seeded Florida Atlantic on Sunday.
“I do know they play actually exhausting and so they consider,” stated Dusty Might, Florida Atlantic’s coach. “It’s gonna be an incredible sport.”
The post Who’s Fairleigh Dickinson, the No. 16 Seed That Beat Purdue? appeared first on lickscycles.com.
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