Fairleigh Dickinson Basketball: Deeper look at historic upset over Purdue

What We Know

Let’s review what we do know before we get into the meat of the things we don’t know. Fairleigh Dickinson came into the tournament as the worst team in the field by all rankings, if you all follow Kenpom, they were ranked 312 heading into the game with Purdue. The Knights finished the season still outside of the top 250 at number 267. Purdue finished the season ranked in the top 10 of KenPom at number 8. That is a giant disparity, and the Knights are one of the lowest ranked KenPom teams to win a game in the NCAA tournament.

Just to take this a step further when UMBC, the other 16 seed to win their game, beat Virginia they were in the top 200 of KenPom. It was still an upset but a team in the 300’s of Kenpom, that came from a conference that had every member in the 300’s winning a game against a top 10 Kenpom team is unprecedented, especially when the game is on the biggest stage.

Fairleigh Dickinson was the shortest team in the country and did not have a single player over 6’6” and only had one player who was at least that tall in Ansley Almonor. So how did they fluster Purdue and big man Zach Edey who is almost a foot taller than any of the Knights. It is one of the greatest mysteries of the NCAA Tournament. We also know that Fairleigh Dickinson believed that they could beat Purdue.

The Knights came out and showed that, but their coach Tobin Anderson said after their victory in the First Four that “the more I watch Purdue, I know we are going to beat them.”  It was a perfect storm by a Knights team who plays extremely fast, has shooters everywhere, and made a ton of shots. Purdue has shooters, a young backcourt, the national player of the year at center, and got flustered when you press them. Coach Anderson knew exactly what to do to fluster Purdue.

Purdue was the heavy favorite in the game being favored by over 20 points. They got into panic mode as the game started to spiral and could not recover. The last team to lose to a 16 seed in the tournament won the National Title, that could excite Purdue fans as well. The Knights were not technically supposed to be in the tournament as they are the only automatic bid to the tournament that did not win their conference tournament. They were defeated in the Northeast conference title game by Merrimack. Merrimack is currently in their transition to Division 1 and is not eligible for the postseason, so Fairleigh Dickinson went in their stead.

That is just another layer on why this was one of the most unexpected upsets ever. How else was this unexpected?  Let’s now look at the budgets of each athletic department and their coaches’ salaries to really show the disparity between the lowest of low majors and power schools.