Did anyone believe that the 15th-seeded Peacocks of Saint Peter’s University would be the first team of their rank to reach the Elite Eight of March Madness? On a more fundamental note, prior to the start of the tournament, did anyone actually know where Saint Peter’s was located?
The small, under-funded New Jersey school took the entire nation by storm by knocking off 2-seed Kentucky, 7-seed Murray State, and 3-seed Purdue in the 2022 NCAA Tournament. Saint Peter’s set a multitude of March Madness records, including becoming the first MAAC team to reach the Elite Eight and being the lowest-ever seed to reach the same point.
Amazingly, not one of the underrated stars on the Peacocks’ roster were ranked coming out of high school. With brilliant coaching by Shaheen Holloway, Saint Peter’s has managed to stun the college basketball world and defy the 1-in-1000 odds that they would tread so deeply into the tournament.
The Leading Characters
Leading the scoring for Saint Peter’s was Daryl Banks III, who attended The Patrick School in New Jersey. Banks played alongside future college basketball stars in Al-Amir Dawes and Giorgi Bezhanishvili during his senior year, and coupled with a 14-12 record, Banks went relatively unnoticed. As a result, he wasn’t highly recruited and settled with the Peacocks. However, his talents shined in his first collegiate season, as he played the second-most minutes on the team and raked in MAAC All-Rookie Team honors. This season he was part of a balanced scoring offense that proved crucial in the upsets over Kentucky, Murray State, and Purdue.
KC Ndefo was an all-around impact player for Saint Peter’s. He played for the unique Lincoln Railsplitters (NY) in high school, where he helped lead his squad to several key upset wins, including a 2-point victory over 36-7 St. Frances Academy (MD). Ndefo was a team captain twice and even clinched a state championship in 2016. Now, he’s a rebounding and scoring machine whose history with pulling off top-ranked upsets in high school has translated to the grandest of stages in college basketball.
There’s no debate that sharpshooter Doug Edert was the fan favorite. Another New Jersey native, Edert starred at Bergen Catholic, where he scored over 1,000 points in his career. He developed his three-point abilities and off-ball motion with the Crusaders, earning him the status of team captain his senior year. As a freshman at Saint Peter’s, Edert provided a spark off the bench, nailing 53 threes and leading the NCAA in three-point field goal percentage deep into December.
In the ensuing years, Edert has worked on developing other facets of his game, as evident in his free-throw shooting, assists, and steals statistics. Most importantly, he has developed his mustache into one of the nation’s best (maybe behind Gonzaga’s Drew Timme).
Saint Peter’s would not be complete without the Drame twins. Hassan and Fousseyni played alongside each other at Our Savior New American (NY), where they battled some of the nation’s best competition alongside current UConn star Adama Sanogo and Golden State Warrior Johnathan Kuminga. Once again, due to the spotlight on Sanogo and Kuminga (who would coincidentally transfer to The Patrick School after the Drame brothers graduated), Hassan and Fousseyni rarely gained attention from the top-ranked schools in the region. As a package deal, they took their talents to the Garden State, where they are now the team’s top two offensive rebounders.
A Legitimate Contender
While Saint Peter’s wasn’t extremely talented this season, there seems to be some common underlying factors that may have hinted at a deep March Madness run. All of the players mentioned so far faced extremely tough competition in high school, both in-state and out-of-state. Additionally, many of the Peacocks’ current contributors played alongside future college and NBA stars in high school. And despite being overshadowed, these players were all named team captains.
They had the experience, leadership, and ability to learn from the best. That’s what made this Saint Peter’s squad so dangerous. At any time during the game, any player could step up and lead the team. The Peacocks had the composure to run late-game offensive plays, a byproduct of their experience against tough high school teams. They also know the tricks to take down talented college teams because, well, they played on those types of rosters in high school. This Saint Peter’s run was years in the making, and now they’ve finally had a chance to show it.
While their run may have ended to 8-seed UNC in the Elite Eight, Saint Peter’s string of March Madness upsets following a 19-11 regular season record will always go down as the best of its kind. There was no luck in this Cinderella story; it was years of preparation, excellent coaching, and intelligent scouting that set the stage for their history-making run in the 2022 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
