Fairleigh Dickinson Basketball: Deeper look at historic upset over Purdue

Future Direction

Starting with Purdue because I have some tangible evidence to go on. The Boilermakers will likely return a good portion of their roster and will be a favorite to win the National Title. The National Title pick won’t be a bad one especially given the last time that a one seed in the NCAA tournament lost to a 16 seed, the Virginia Cavaliers, won the National Title. Purdue is a good team and they will be fine this is going to be something that is going to haunt those players all summer and they are going to come back in and be extremely motivated ready to make a deep run in March.

This could also go the other direction for the Boilermakers and this loss affects them so much that they go into a shell that they can never get out of. I trust coach Painter to make sure that does not happen and gets this team ready to play and go win a title. The Big Ten is very competitive from top to bottom most years and next year it feels could be a year where Purdue is able to get some big separation from the rest of the pack and earn another 1 seed. I doubt they let what happened this year happen again. Time will tell how affected these players are by that.

As for Fairleigh Dickinson, the Knights return back to Teaneck heroes and a team that will never be forgotten. The Knights much like Saint Peter’s did last year, just lost their coach to another program. That is life in smaller conferences, especially when a higher paying higher profile job is available. The good thing for the Knights is they did hire within so most of those players should hopefully stick around. The two best players are both graduate transfers and are no longer eligible to play college basketball. It may be a tough year in Teaneck, and who knows when the Knights will make the NCAA tournament again. They will always be remembered for that one evening in Columbus, Ohio when they were at the center of the college basketball world.

Fairleigh Dickinson stole our hearts this season, much like Saint Peter’s did last season, and Oral Roberts the season before that. The state of New Jersey, which just so happens to be where sweet 16 team Princeton Tigers is located, has been the mecca of the college basketball universe in March over the last two seasons. I hope you all have a better understanding now of just how crazy this upset truly was.