NCAA tournament: Fairleigh Dickinson stuns top-seeded Purdue

Fairleigh Dickinson guard Demetre Roberts (2) reacts late in the Knights' 63-58 win over Purdue on March 17, 2023.

By Tom Withers

Associated Press

March 17, 2023 Updated 8:21 PM PT

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Fairleigh Dickinson brought down a giant.

Pulling off one of the biggest upsets in NCAA tournament history, the undersized, underdog Knights stunned top-seeded Purdue 63-58 on Friday night, becoming the second No. 16 seed to win a game in March Madness.

The shortest of the 363 Division I teams in the nation, the Knights (21-15) showed no fear in swarming 7-foot-4 All-American center Zach Edey from the start and simply outplayed the Big Ten Conference champion Boilermakers (29-6).

“If we played them 100 times, they’d probably beat us 99 times,” FDU coach Tobin Anderson said. “Play them 100 times, we have one win. But tonight’s the one we had to be unique, we had to be unorthodox. We had to make it tough on them, just be different.”

Sean Moore scored 19 points to lead FDU and a relentless defensive charge — the Knight pressed most of the game — by a team that now has everyone’s attention.

Five years ago, UMBC showed the way for the little guys by overwhelming Virginia in the first 16-over-1 victory after numerous close calls over the years. Still, No. 16s had a 1-150 record against No. 1s and were 1-151 overall before FDU’s shocker.

After the final horn, FDU’s players mobbed one another on the floor of Nationwide Arena, where the fans from Memphis and Florida Atlantic who were waiting for the day’s final game joined forces in cheering on the Knights in the final, frantic minutes.

The Knights will now meet the Memphis-FAU winner Sunday for a Sweet 16 berth and a trip next week to play at Madison Square Garden in New York — just a short drive from the private school’s campus in Teaneck, N.J.

“Man, I can’t even explain it,” Moore said. “I’m still in shock right now. I can’t believe it. It’s crazy. But it feels amazing.”

Purdue's Zach Edey (15), Fletcher Loyer (2) and Caleb Furst (1) walk off the court after losing to Fairleigh Dickinson.

Fairleigh Dickinson didn’t even win the Northeast Conference tournament, falling by one point in the title game to Merrimack, which could not participate in the NCAA tournament because of an NCAA rule that bars it from the postseason because it is still completing its four-year transition from Division II.

FDU held Purdue scoreless for more than 5½ minutes down the stretch and moved ahead by five on a three-pointer by Moore — who is from suburban Columbus — with 1:03 left.

The Knights held on from there, becoming the third consecutive double-digit seed to send the Boilermakers home. Purdue was a No. 3 seed when it lost to No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s, another small New Jersey school, in the Sweet 16 last year. The Boilermakers were bounced in the first round by 13th-seeded North Texas in 2021.

“Our job was just to come into the game and throw a punch,” said FDU’s Demetre Roberts, 20 inches shorter than Edey. “We knew they would throw multiple punches. Just throw a punch back. We knew what type of game this was.”

Edey finished with 21 point and 15 rebounds in what might have been his final college game, but the Knights were masterful against him in the second half. Edey did not attempt a shot in the final nine minutes, and any time he touched the ball there were Knights all around him.

“A lot of times, they would have one dude guarding from behind and one dude basically sitting in my lap,” Edey said. “They were full fronting the entire game. Made it very hard to get catches. Credit to them, they had a great game plan coming in. And they executed it very well.”

When Purdue’s late push fell short and its season ended, Edey squeezed the shoulder straps on his jersey and walked stone-faced toward the Boilermakers’ locker room.

Fairleigh Dickinson guard Grant Singleton (4) celebrates after a basket against Purdue on March 17, 2023.

The junior center is a possible NBA lottery pick, but the bitterness of this defeat could sway Edey to stick around for another year.

“I have no opinion on that,” Edey said when asked about his future. “I’ll make my decision going forward.”

The Knights’ two previous NCAA tournament wins came in the First Four, including this year, when they drubbed Texas Southern 84-61. After that game, Anderson told his players he believed they could handle Edey and Co.

“The more I see Purdue, the more I think we can beat them,” Anderson said with a camera in the locker room.

Some of Purdue’s players said they felt disrespected by the comments, which turned out to be prophetic.

“It was the right message, wrong audience,” Anderson said. “I would have said that with no camera in there. I didn’t mean to get Purdue upset. That was not the idea at all. But that’s got to be the message. We’re trying to win the next game. We just can’t be happy to be here.

“And the guys gotta believe.”

Just being in the tournament was quite an accomplishment for FDU, which went 4-22 a year ago.

This was Anderson’s first season at the school, and after he landed the job in May, he held a practice the first night just so he knew what he had to work with from a team that had the second-worst record in the program’s 58-year history.

It wasn’t a lot, so he brought three players — Roberts, Grant Singleton and Moore — along with him from Division II power St. Thomas Aquinas.

Turns out, they are giant slayers.

And it was the Boilermakers, not the undersized Knights, who were scrambling from the opening tip.

Purdue might have had Fairleigh Dickinson outsized on the floor and in the stands, as a boisterous group of Boilermakers fans gave their team what felt like a home-court advantage despite being 240 miles from West Lafayette, Ind.

However, when the Knights’ Joe Munden hit a step-back three-pointer in the first half, “F-D-U!” chants broke out inside the arena and it became obvious this small team had big dreams.

Without a player on its roster taller than 6-6, Fairleigh Dickinson sometimes needed two players to guard Edey — one in front and one behind — and he missed his first three shots before a dunk.

Edey showed some frustration and at one point told one of the officials, “Sir, he’s holding my left arm.”

Purdue eventually settled in and reeled off 11 straight points — four on free throws by Edey — to take 24-19 lead. The Knights, though, responded with their own spurt, and Heru Bligen’s layup after a steal helped FDU take a 32-31 into halftime.

Roberts finished with 12 points and 6-4 forward Cameron Tweedy had 10 points on five-for-six shooting for FDU.