Sunday’s March Madness: Fairleigh Dickinson Loses to Florida Atlantic

Mississippi had not come into this game exactly rolling either, with a few scattered losses before the national tournament, including a 29-point drubbing from South Carolina in the Southeastern Conference semifinals.

But the double-digit loss seemed to be an outlier given how Mississippi had played against the Gamecocks during the regular season, in which it held the odds-on favorite for a national title to its third-lowest scoring total. That game, played at a slow pace that forced South Carolina into difficult shots, was the kind of game that Mississippi imposed on Stanford on Sunday.

Mississippi will face the Louisville-Texas winner in Seattle on Friday. — Kris Rhim

The Cinderella story ended for Fairleigh Dickinson.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Florida Atlantic, a ninth seed in rare position to play a second-round N.C.A.A. tournament game as a heavy favorite, swiftly ended the improbable run of No. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson on Sunday night, 78-70, stopping F.D.U.’s bid for an encore following its takedown of top-seeded Purdue.

The nearly 20,000-person crowd in Nationwide Arena stayed late into the night to see the Knights attempt another shocking victory with the shortest roster in the nation and its signature style of “bedlam” basketball. Fans of Marquette and Michigan State, who had just watched their teams duel, stayed to root for the underdogs from Teaneck, N.J., showering the arena throughout the game with chants of “F.D.U.! F.D.U.!” Some fans, without other options, wore plain T-shirts with the team’s initials scrawled on with a marker.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/19/sports/ncaabasketball/march-madness-sunday.html