Purdue’s Zach Edey lines up a shot. Photo courtesy of Alexander Jonesi, 2022
At the beginning of the Fairleigh Dickinson (FDU) and Purdue matchup in the first round of this year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, cheers echoed in the arena after every Purdue player was announced. Fans gave pity claps to the FDU players as they walked towards inevitable elimination. Purdue was a no. 1 seed and winner of the Big Ten tournament, while FDU was considered one of the worst teams in the NCAA tournament. But one player from FDU was given the same applause as the Purdue players — no. 11, Sean Moore. Moore was from Columbus, Ohio, where the matchup was held. Being a local product, he received verdant hometown support. At the end of the night, though, Nationwide Arena would be cheering on the whole FDU squad along with him.
Last season, FDU Basketball was a trainwreck. Finishing with a 4–22 record, the Knights ended the season last place in the Northeast conference. They had fired their previous coach in the summer, and to start this year, they hired Head Coach Tobin Anderson. This was his first division one (D1) coaching opportunity, but he had previous experience at the D2 and D3 levels, notably as Hamilton College Head Coach from 2004–11. He brought many transfer players from his former job at Saint Thomas Aquinas, a small D2 school 30 minutes north of FDU. Nonetheless, expectations were low coming into the season. FDU was the shortest team in D1, with an average height of 6’1”. Most players had received no other D1 offer. But Coach Anderson managed to turn them around in the regular season, leading them to a 21–16 record. This was good enough for a spot in the Northeast Conference Tournament. There, FDU fought to the championship game, eventually losing to conference rival Merrimack. In small conferences like the Northeast, usually only the tournament winner goes to the NCAA Tournament, so this is where the FDU story should end. Merrimack should have taken a trip to the NCAA March Madness Tournament to be swept by a better team, but Merrimack is a new D1 school. This means nothing in normal play, but it does make them ineligible for the March Madness tournament. Therefore, even though FDU lost their conference championship, they were selected to represent the Northeast conference.
FDU player finishes strong in Dayton, Ohio. Photo courtesy of Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.
Unsurprisingly, the tournament committee did not think very highly of them. FDU received the 16th (and lowest) seed and a ranking of 68th out of 68 overall. With this, FDU had to play in the First Four, a series of games held in Dayton, Ohio to make final cuts for March Madness. To put the relative importance of their team in perspective, the Knights were forced to use Dayton’s marching band for this game, as FDU’s athletic budget could not cover one of their own. There, FDU played and beat another 16 seed, Texas Southern, 84–61. This led them to their hardest game yet, against no. 1 overall Purdue.
Purdue was a heavy favorite to win March Madness this year. An incredible sweep in their Big Ten Conference Tournament and a 29–6 record earned the Boilermakers the no. 1 seed. Not to mention, they had Zach Edey. Standing at 7’4, Edey was not only the tallest person in the tournament but he also came in averaging 22 points and 13 rebounds per game. He is the tallest player to ever play in the Big Ten, and the driving force of Purdue. The Boilermakers had the odds tilted far in their favor for this matchup with FDU. Since 1985, when 16 seeds were added to the tournament, they are 1–150 against the 1 seeds. Although UMBC paved the way for 16 seeds five years ago, it remained a near impossible task to take a no. 1 seed down. With all these odds in their favor, a Purdue win was considered a formality.
Then, a miracle took place. Fairleigh Dickinson Men’s Basketball, statistically the worst team in the tournament, took down Purdue, the best in the tournament. It ended 63–58, in one of the most shocking results of all time. Unlike UMBC vs. Virginia, the first time a 16 seed beat a 1 seed, this game was close. Close does not matter in a single elimination tournament, though. The last few minutes of the game were chaotic as the teams went at each other in pursuit of the win, but FDU came out on top, becoming only the second 16 seed to qualify the round of 32. Edey did show up for the Boilermakers, putting up 21 points and 15 rebounds. The rest of his team, on the other hand, did not. In the end, FDU simply seemed to want it more. The Knights would go on to lose their round of 32 game two days later to Florida Atlantic University, 78–70. However, Fairleigh Dickinson accomplished an incredible feat that weekend and wrote their names in college basketball history.