March Madness certainly lives up to its Friday night name. No. 16 FDU seeds Make an amazing surprise from No. 1 seed Purdue, making the Knights the second team in NCAA Tournament history to win a game 16-1.
Winning on several fronts was impossible to predict: The No. 16 seed was tied 1-150 in their first-round ties going into Friday. FDU is The shortest average team in the country, according to KenPom, while Purdue is the longest; As underdogs with 23.5 points, the Knights were in line to pull off the biggest upset in tournament history by winning; And if the point is to need more representation, FDU wins Eliminate all remaining perfect arcs for men on CBS Sports.
In fact, FDU was even lucky enough to make it to the Big Dance. The Knights lost the NEC title game to Merrimack, but because Merrimack is moving up to Division I, it was ineligible for the NCAA Tournament, thus an automatic conference award to FDU. The Knights are listed as the No. 68 seed – the last team in the field.
The Knights’ historic win comes five years after UMBC became the first team to win a game 16 to 1. UMBC beat Virginia as the underdog 20.5 points in that game.
Rather than get bitter about FDU stealing their spotlight, UMBC celebrated the victory of their fellow underdog while issuing a friendly reminder to fans to be civil towards Purdue:
The March Madness account was for the FDU-UMBC connection, as was the FDU…
Chris Long, a former NFL defensive tackle and Virginia alumnus, took FDU’s win as a reason for fans to stop trash-talking the Cavaliers—Purdue fans, in particular…
CBS Sports noted FDU coach Tobin Anderson He had an idea that this win was possible days ago…
Here are some other reactions from the Twitterverse…
“Student. Incurable problem solver. Amateur baconaholic. Introvert. Infuriatingly humble music fanatic.”