The FDU Knights shocked the sports world on Friday night to be just the second 16-seed in college basketball history to upend a top seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Heading into the Fairleigh Dickinson Knights matchup against the Purdue Boilermakers tonight, the team from a school in Hackensack, New Jersey was a +2100 underdog. The number is unsurprising considering the history of March Madness.
Related: Greatest March Madness upsets in NCAA tournament history
As mad as the NCAA Tournament can be, 16-seeds getting a win in the annual event is extremely rare. In the over 80-year history of the men’s March Madness, only one 16 seed has done the unthinkable and that came when UMBC surprised Virginia and made history by being the first to do it in 2018. Well, UMBC is no longer alone in the history books.
On Friday night, the FDU Knights — the shortest team in the tournament — used a mix of guts, effort, defense, and some very timely shooting to eliminate Purdue from this year’s tournament, 63-58.
The game was highly competitive throughout and the FDU Knights actually led by a point, 32-31, at halftime. They continued that strong play in the second half and started to pull away late. Junior Sean Moore — a player who averaged just under seven points per game this season — shined as he dropped 19 points and added a massive block in the final minute of the biggest game of his and his teammates’ life.
FDU Knights record (’22-’23): 20-15, second in Northeast Conference
Purdue was one of the best teams in the country all season and was led by Zach Edey, a 7-foot-4 talent many expect to win the 2023 Naismith Award as the nation’s top player. However, late in their matchup with the FDU Knights, the Boilermakers seemed to get tight as they felt the pressure of history upon them.
In a sign that fortune was likely not in their favor, a rebound from a missed FDU shot actually hit Edey in the face and bounced out of bounds. Giving Purdue’s opponents the ball back.
The historic win for the FDU Knights was actually their second of this tournament after the team was a part of the “first four” games and beat Texas Southern to get into March Madness 2023. The win came after the FDU Knights lost in the Northeast Conference finals to Merrimack.
Purdue entered the tournament having lost just four times this season. Zach Edey, who could be headed to the NBA Draft in June, led his team with 21 points, 15 rebounds, and two blocks. However, he only got off a few shots late in what will go down as the worst loss in the long history of Purdue University.
Purdue has several tournament losses to double-digit seeds, including last year as a two-seed to the 2022 Cinderella team Saint Peter’s.