Fairleigh Dickinson’s Tobin Anderson Has Bold Message for Team Ahead of Purdue Game

The Knights routed Texas Southern in the First Four on Wednesday night.
Fairleigh Dickinson’s Tobin Anderson Has Bold Message for Team Ahead of Purdue Game
Fairleigh Dickinson’s Tobin Anderson Has Bold Message for Team Ahead of Purdue Game /

Fairleigh Dickinson was riding high Wednesday evening, fresh off its second-ever men’s NCAA Tournament win—an 84-61 pasting of Texas Southern in the First Four in Dayton, Ohio.

Knights coach Tobin Anderson, however, anted up in his team’s raucous postgame celebration, unintentionally calling out Fairleigh Dickinson’s formidable first-round opponent.

“I don’t want Purdue to see this, right?” Anderson said before delivering his motivating message (a remark misheard by some as “I want Purdue to see this”).

The first-year coach—a six-time Division II tournament qualifier at St. Thomas Aquinas in Sparkill, N.Y.—then outlined his plan to stun the nation Friday in Columbus, Ohio.

“I walked into breakfast this morning and (assistant coach) Kam Murrell said to me,” Anderson said, “’The more I watch Purdue, the more I think we can beat them.’ Let’s go shock the world.”

Only one No. 16 seed ever has defeated a No. 1 seed in the men’s NCAA tournamentUMBC, which topped Virginia, 74-54, in Charlotte on March 16, 2018.


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Patrick Andres
PATRICK ANDRES

Patrick Andres is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He joined SI in December 2022, having worked for The Blade, Athlon Sports, Fear the Sword and Diamond Digest. Andres has covered everything from zero-attendance Big Ten basketball to a seven-overtime college football game. He is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism with a double major in history .