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Fairleigh Dickinson had the single biggest upset of March. What happened next? I called them

This is March

Good morning, and thanks for your continued support of Extra Points.

It’s easy to forget this, since the Final Four doesn’t have a single 1, 2 or 3 seed and either FAU or San Diego State will play in the National Title Game, but the single biggest upset of the tournament didn’t actually involve any of those schools.

Lest we forget, just a few weeks ago, Fairleigh Dickinson knocked off Purdue, only the second 16 seed to beat a 1 seed in the NCAA Men’s Tournament. Given the fact that FDU shouldn’t have even been in the tournament to begin with, (NEC champion Merrimack, as a reclassifying school, wasn’t eligible for the tournament, so FDU got the auto-bid), you could argue that FDU’s win was the biggest upset in men’s college basketball history.

If you passionately want to argue for Chaminade or UMBC, that’s fine. I’m happy to consider your arguments in the comments or mentions.

So what happens to a school like FDU after such a massive upset? Is their world changed forever? Have the heavens opened and sponsorship dollars rained down?

I called up Jason Young, the school’s Associate Athletic Director for External Affairs, to better understand what changed, and maybe what the collective internet misunderstood about the school.

Let’s start with FDU’s Sports Information Director. You might have heard about this…FDU’s SID isn’t like most other D-I SIDs. He’s still an undergraduate.

When I saw this, I assumed FDU made this decision because the department was trying to save money. I wasn’t the only one to make that assumption. But you know what they say about making assumptions.

According to Young, I got that all wrong.

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