The opening day of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is always a thrill, and Thursday’s action was no exception.
Day 2 was also filled with a host of great matchups, and it all resulted in some amazing finishes — and sometimes absolutely stunning results.
We have a full breakdown below, but first, make sure you check out a few key items: our NCAA Tournament bracket, NCAA Tournament schedule, 50 reasons to be excited for March Madness and top plays of the first round.
Stay tuned for exclusive interviews, running analysis and more from Day 2.
No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson 63, No. 1 Purdue 58
Exclusive interview with FDU coach Tobin Anderson
Shortly after FDU’s stunning upset of top seed Purdue, Tobin Anderson stopped by for a chat, admitting that it still hadn’t really sunk in what he and his team had accomplished.
“Did we really just do this?” he said. “And our players were the same way. They walked around almost like in a daze, like ‘what just happened?’”
In addition to his reaction to the victory, Anderson also talked about why his team was able to become just the second 16-seed to win a first-round game.
“I think sometimes styles make fights,” he said. “Our style, you don’t see that in the Big Ten. Teams that press. You don’t see that quickness that we have. We’re not very big but we’re athletic, we’re quick, we’re fast, we love the up-tempo game. And we didn’t score a ton of points tonight, but we made the game faster than Purdue wanted to play.”
Anderson praised his team for its composure (“nothing rattled us”) and for taking care of business (“this is the lowest-maintenance team I’ve ever had”).
Check out the full interview here:
My breakdown of the game:
There is no greater event in sports than the NCAA Tournament because David can beat Goliath.
Tobin Anderson was criticized on Wednesday night after he said he felt his FDU Knights could beat the Purdue Boilermakers.
Well, who’s laughing now?
Anderson and the Knights captured the eyes of the world on Friday night in Columbus, stunning Zach Edey and the Boilermakers.
Everything about this result epitomizes the madness of March:
- The Knights, who actually lost the NEC Tournament championship game to Merrimack but took the conference’s tournament bid due to NCAA Division I reclassifying rules for the Warriors, were the final team on the 68-team seeding list from the selection committee.
- According to Odds Shark, FDU was a 23.5-point underdog. In…
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