The end of the basketball season doesn’t mean it’s the end of basketball interest on campus. March Madness spirit is in the air as NCAA men’s basketball teams compete in the annual tournament that takes place during the month of March. 

Sophomore Beau Couture said he feels like this year’s tournament feels different because of new teams receiving recognition. He said he finds it uplifting that a school like Fairleigh Dickinson University, which seldom receives recognition, defeated Purdue University. 

“I like this year’s tournament because a school like FDU, who nobody has ever heard of, took down Purdue which is inspiring,” Couture said. 

Freshman Andrew Newlin said he most enjoyed the shock of the failure experienced by Purdue University. 

“Personally I did not expect Purdue [University] to go upse,” he said. “I picked a few up-sets such as Furman taking on Virginia but losing to 16-seed [ranking] as a one-seed [rank] is crazy,” Newlin said. 

Aside from the shock of FDU taking on Purdue University , freshman Jack Grimison said he believes that FDU’s success was a result of their hard work and desire to win. 

“What it seemed to me was that Purdue wasn’t playing from the heart, while FDU had desire to win which allowed them to win the game, even if they were a worse team on paper,” Grimison said. 

By Adithya Niyogi