Even for someone who loves March Madness as much as I do, it's been a little bit hard to get up for this year's iterations. Maybe it's the surplus of blowouts or the overall parity than makes even Harvard's taking out New Mexico seem generally underwhelming. I love the tournament - the upsets, the music, the buzzer beaters - as much as anyone, but I felt I was doing my way through the proceedings.
But somewhere along the way, something funny happened. In a year where the magic of March seemed to dim, Florida Gulf Coast University has reminded us of everything this tournament is about.
Florida Gulf Coast University is younger than I am. It was founded in 1991, 202 years after the founding of Georgetown University, its first-round opponent. Ten years ago, the basketball program was a member of the NAIA, considered even lower on the totem pole than Div. III. Two years ago, Florida Gulf Coast still wasn't a Div. I school.
So where did such a sudden rise to prominence come from? Well it couldn't have been foreseen based on its first year in Div. 1, a 15-17 campaign that included a 42-point blowout at the hands of Belmont. It didn't come from pouring money into the basketball program - only four teams in the tournament spend less on their basketball programs than the Eagles.
Florida Gulf Coast started the season off a little differently than the rest of its NCAA tournament brethren - the team held open tryouts in October to anyone with high school-level basketball experience. Just over a month later, they were beating Miami, a No. 2 seed in the tournament this year, by double figures in their second game of the year.
They toughened themselves up with games against VCU, Duke and Iowa State but then stumbled in conference play, finishing just 13-5 and missing out on the regular season title by a single game. They got their revenge in the conference championship game, beating Mercer 88-75 to clinch a spot at the dance. That's when things began to get crazy.
They earned a 15th seed and a date with Georgetown in the first round. This is the Georgetown of Patrick Ewing and Allen Iverson, one of the most storied programs in college basketball history. But the Eagles were never rattled. They kept things close in a scrappy first half and took a two-point lead into the locker rooms that got people's attention. Then, facing a team with the nation's fourth best defensive efficiency, they scored 54 second-half points, steadily growing the lead until they were comfortable enough to go for a bone-crunching alley-oop dunk that will go down in March Madness lore.
But Florida Gulf Coast's story was not a one-chapter tale. Two nights later, it took on San Diego State and once again fought through a back-and-forth first half. But once again, it was all Eagles in the second half, and what was once a one-point halftime deficit grew to as much as an 18-point lead.
On the verge of making history as the first No. 15 seed ever to make the Sweet 16, the Eagles didn't know how to contain themselves. They tried everything from another alley-oop (cool) to sticking out the tongue (meh) to the chicken dance (a little outdated). Unlike the basketball factories that will join them in the Regional Semifinals, these kids were out there having fun.
Next weekend, the Eagles will travel to Texas with three teams that have a combined six national titles. They will take on a Florida team that is one of the greatest advanced statistics squads in recent memory. It's unlikely that they'll make it through another game.
But even if they don't, their run will go down as the defining moment of this tournament.
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Ethan Sturm is a senior majoring in biopsychology. He can be reached at Ethan.Sturm@tufts.edu or on Twitter @esturm90.
