St. Peter's

And the Peacocks aren't satisfied after achieving history, becoming the first 15 seed to reach the March Madness Elite Eight.

The Peacocks just made plays, with the confidence of a team that has played in moments like this for years, not days. Just as it did against Kentucky and Murray State, it won the game down the stretch with its play. In fact, Holloway playfully scolded Edert when he found out that the mustached shooting guard had stood on the media table to celebrate postgame and later made clear that this was far from a perfect performance from his team. Edert, the clutch shot-maker of the tournament, missed a front end of a one-and-one and blew an open layup when the Peacocks were seemingly on the ropes. This tournament has been full of surely, this is the end moments for the Peacocks. When it trailed by six with under four minutes to go against Kentucky in the opening round, Saint Peter’s appeared on its way back to anonymity, a team that enjoyed 15 minutes of fame amidst the chaos of the tourney’s first day. Holloway has said over and over that many of his players believe they should be playing at Kentucky, but in a layup line the Peacocks look like a rather ordinary mid-major team, with small guards and skinny big men. The Peacocks have beaten, in succession, perhaps the sport’s best player (Oscar Tshiebwe, of No. 2 Kentucky), the team with the sport’s best record (No. 7 Murray State) and now the sport’s top offense (Purdue). They’re the first No. 15 seed to ever reach the Elite Eight, and in the process become the darling of not just the basketball world, but the sports world in general. Later, Trevion Williams began establishing himself on the block and keyed an 8–0 run to help the Boilermakers regain the lead. They got beat by timely shots and critical rebounds by a team made up of underrecruited, undersized competitors. Still, make no mistake: It was a Peacocks home game in Philly. Basketball fans from everywhere adopted this consummate underdog over the last nine days, and the bandwagon hasn’t stopped growing yet. In Chicago, at the day’s other NCAA tournament site, fans erupted every time the scoreboard showed an in-game update with the Peacocks hanging around. It hasn’t hit a stunning barrage of threes or needed buzzer beaters to stay alive.