The lads’s basketball workforce at Fairleigh Dickinson College, a non-public commuter college with a campus in Teaneck, N.J., went 4-22 final season. Three of its greatest gamers and its coach had been competing in Division II. And the Knights, taking part in 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 grew to become 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 really like our guys — they’re powerful, they’re gritty, the play their tails off,” Fairleigh Dickinson’s first-year coach, Tobin Anderson, mentioned after the win. “That’s unbelievable. We simply shocked the world, and it couldn’t occur to a greater bunch of men, a greater bunch of followers, my household, the entire thing.”
So, who’re these guys, and the way huge a deal is that this?
This yr’s workforce is comparatively new.
After 9 years at St. Thomas Aquinas School, a Division II workforce in Sparkill, N.Y., Anderson was employed at Fairleigh Dickinson, a college of fewer than 8,000 college students in Teaneck, N.J.
Anderson changed Greg Herenda, who was fired after a four-win season during 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 taking part in Friday evening 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,” mentioned Moore, who hit an enormous straightaway 3-pointer to provide his workforce 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.) are not any strangers to the insanity of March. Below Anderson, St. Thomas Aquinas received three straight East Coast Convention tournaments and appeared within the spherical of 16 three straight instances within the Division II N.C.A.A. males’s match.
Roberts believes that the three have made a press release this season concerning the high quality of gamers from Division II.
“I don’t actually see a distinction between DII and DI,” he mentioned earlier this month.
Fairleigh Dickinson solely made the sphere as a result of one other workforce was ineligible.
The Knights won’t even be taking part on this yr’s N.C.A.A. match had been it not for the ineligibility of Merrimack School. Merrimack beat F.D.U. on its dwelling courtroom, 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 yr of a transition from Division II to Division I.
The transitional interval is a standard however generally tense difficulty in school athletics, with universities agreeing to carry off on postseason play as they construct up their amenities and different infrastructure to adjust to the necessities of their new division.
“I hope transferring ahead for the children’ sake, one thing is completed about it as a result of for 4 years what you’re doing is, you’re taking a child’s complete profession out of the equation,” Merrimack coach Joe Gallo mentioned within the lead-up to the convention title sport.
Merrimack ended its season on a 14-game profitable streak.
This upset could have been foreshadowed by one other Purdue upset final yr.
May Fairleigh Dickinson be the following St. Peter’s? Its gamers certain hope so, and Purdue may suppose so. The Boilermakers had been upset by tiny St. Peter’s out of Jersey Metropolis, N.J., within the spherical of 16 a yr in the past.
Now, a yr 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 method to go to match the entire match run by St. Peter’s, although. That workforce 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 steadily check themselves towards greater 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 general seed within the match, was a lot, a lot totally different than Fairleigh Dickinson’s win on Friday evening.
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 courtroom understanding that they had been barely being challenged.
Again then, U.M.B.C.’s social media workforce gained notoriety for his or her witty banter, particularly on Twitter. And it punctuated Friday evening’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.
After all, this stuff might be subjective, however there’s an argument that Fairleigh Dickinson’s win over Purdue could rank as the best upset within the historical past of the match. In contrast to 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, nevertheless it had been a 20-point underdog. Fairleigh Dickinson was a 23-point underdog to Purdue.
The Knights are additionally the shortest workforce in Division 1 — with a median top of 6-foot-1, in accordance with KenPom.com — rating 363rd out of 363 groups. Purdue featured 7-foot-4 Zach Edey, a contender for nationwide participant of the yr 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 imagine,” mentioned Dusty Might, Florida Atlantic’s coach. “It’s gonna be an awesome sport.”