There’s a certain ethereal quality to any run by a mid-major Cinderella in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Each step has to be savored, for the school’s alums and the rest of us who love a good underdog story, because however the end arrives — whether with a lopsided loss in the second round or with Gordon Hayward’s buzzer-beating midcourt shot bouncing off the backboard and robbing Butler and the rest of the world of the greatest championship-clinching moment in sports history in the 2010 national title game against Duke — it’s the sporting equivalent of a car traveling 100 mph meeting a brick wall.
Once the glass slipper no longer fits, the rest of the world moves on and the Cinderella, with rare exception, faces a treacherous path just to get back to the NCAA Tournament, never mind beyond the first round.
And in the modern college basketball landscape, Cinderella moves on as quickly as everyone else.
Seventeen days ago, Saint Peter’s — a 2,355-student school in Jersey City with an endowment of $37 million — was the biggest sports story in the country as it prepared to play North Carolina for a berth in the Final Four. The Peacocks, champions of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) and seeded 15th in the East Region, upset Kentucky, Murray State and Purdue — schools with a combined enrollment of more than 65,000 and a combined endowments of just a bit under $4.8 BILLION — to become the first school seeded lower than 12th to advance to the Elite Eight.
Today, Saint Peter’s introduced new head coach Bashir Mason, who arrived from nearby Wagner to replace March’s breakout star Shaheen Holloway after the latter accepted the head coaching job at Seton Hall — a move that was a foregone conclusion throughout the Peacocks’ stirring NCAA Tournament run.
Standing ovation as Bashir Mason is introduced as the new Saint Peter's head coach, with a video of his career now playing on the big screens in Run Baby Run Arena
— Steve Edelson (@steveedelsonapp) April 13, 2022
Upon officially taking the job, Mason’s first task will be to try and convince a quintet of key players — Daryl Banks, twin brothers Fousseyni Drame and Hassan Drame, Matt Lee and KC Ndefo — to remain with the program. Banks, Lee and the Drames are all in the transfer portal while Ndefo, who entered the portal after last season before returning to Saint Peter’s, is a senior who could either go pro or choose to transfer elsewhere with the extra year of eligibility granted to all who played during the pandemic season.
Doug Edert, the mustached sixth man who became the most popular Peacocks player during the Elite Eight run, has already transferred to Bryant. Edert, Banks, Lee, Ndefo and the Drames combined to score 211 of Saint Peter’s 271 points in the four NCAA Tournament games.
Even if that quintet returns, Edert’s tale will signify how players on Cinderella teams have received an overdue chance to experience the benefits previously reserved for schools, which experience a spike in enrollment after surprisingly deep tourney runs, and the head coaches, who are rewarded with life-changing raises.
Saint Peter’s players, including Doug Edert, who has transferred to Bryant, and Daryl Banks, who heads the group in the transfer portal, just walked into press conference
— Steve Edelson (@steveedelsonapp) April 13, 2022
The NCAA’s new transfer rule, instituted in April 2021, allows players to transfer once without sitting out a season. And NIL (name, image and likeness) deals, which began last July, provide players an opportunity to be compensated during their careers. After the second-round win over Murray State, Edert signed deals with Buffalo Wild Wings and Barstool Sports.
Even if everyone came back, there’d be no guarantee Saint Peter’s would return to the NCAA Tournament. Butler — which made the title game again in 2011 and has won six NCAA Tournament games since 2013 — is the outlier among the Cinderellas.
George Mason has won one NCAA Tournament game since its Final Four appearance. VCU has won two games in seven tourney trips since 2012, a span in which it’s been sent to far-flung locales such as Salt Lake City, San Diego, Oklahoma City and Portland (twice).
