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Spartans are big underdog to Gonzaga, but they’re used to role
Norfolk State upended Appalachian State in a First Four thriller late Thursday night. But unbeaten Gonzaga, the overall top seed and NCAA tournament favorite, awaits tonight in the first round.
Norfolk State might as well be playing an NBA team.
The Spartans have no practice facility, no roster of deep-pocketed donors and a coach who worked his way up from coaching a high school freshman team, side-hustling to book shows for 50 Cent.
A basketball blue blood NSU is not. But against even the tallest of odds, the Spartans have a puncher’s chance.
NSU, the 16th seed in the NCAA tournament’s West Region, drew top overall seed Gonzaga by virtue of its heart-stopping 54-53 win over Appalachian State in Thursday’s First Four game.
The MEAC champion
Spartans (17-7) enter as 34-point underdogs, but eighth-year coach Robert Jones believes games are played for a reason. And as a coach at an HBCU, he believes the games have their place.
“To be honest with you, being an African-American male in the country is being an underdog,” said Jones, who is Black. “In everyday life, we’re an underdog. So I’m not even putting the pressure on these kids.”
In the Zags (26-0), NSU faces a team that last lost on Feb. 22 of last year, a string of 30 games. Gonzaga has three players — West Coast Conference Player of the Year Corey Kispert, guard Jalen Suggs and forward Drew Timme — who were named first- or secondteam All-Americans and will likely play in the NBA.
The Spartans played their best basketball of the season in the first half against Appalachian State before blowing a 19-point lead and barely surviving.
Junior guard Jalen Hawkins, NSU’s newest hero after scoring a careerhigh 24 points in Thursday’s game, said victory is possible despite the odds.
“I believe so, 100%,” he said. “But it’s going to take more than just 20 minutes to beat Gonzaga. It’s the No. 1 team in the country.”
NSU has been here before. In 2012, the 15th-seeded Spartans upset second-seeded Missouri in the first round of the NCAA tournament. That victory served to put NSU on the national basketball map, and it led to spikes in both hoops recruiting and enrollment at the school.
A win over the Zags, who are trying to complete the first undefeated season in Division I men’s basketball since Indiana pulled it off in 1976, would be even more of a game-changer.
Jones said he hasn’t discussed the only 16-over-1 upset in NCAA tournament history with his players. In 2018, Maryland Baltimore County stunned top-seeded Virginia.
Jones, whose team upset No. 1 seed Alabama on the road in the 2019 NIT, is focused on what the Spartans have done.
“We talked about our own history because we own some big history ourselves,” he said. “We want the guys to understand that people who’ve been in those jerseys — forget about any other team’s jerseys — people who have been in those jerseys and walked those halls of Echols have pulled some of the biggest upsets in college basketball history.”
The Spartans reached the Big Dance for just the second time by knocking off three-time defending champion North Carolina Central and Morgan State in last week’s MEAC tournament at Scope.
They became the first team in program history to win at least a share of the regular-season title and the tournament. It led to a coming-out party for Hawkins, who had never scored more than 17 points in a game.
“It’s an amazing experience,” Hawkins said. “A lot of people dream on these moments. I was one of the kids always dreaming on these moments, and I’m just happy and thanking God that I’m here.”
About as unlikely as an NSU win Saturday is the back story of Jones. A product of the projects in Queens, New York, who played at State University of New York New Paltz, Jones began his coaching career commanding the freshman team at St. Mary’s High in Manhasset, New York. He then became the school’s varsity coach, working for an annual stipend of $11,000.
To make ends meet, he worked booking concerts for hip-hop acts, including an up-and-coming 50 Cent, before reluctantly landing on the staff of then NSU coach Anthony Evans, a former New Paltz assistant, in 2007.
Jones had second thoughts because he didn’t want to give up his music gig.
When Evans left for Florida International after six seasons, including the Spartans’ last NCAA tournament upset, Jones took the head coaching job on an interim basis. Since then, he’s gone 142-118, including a 92-32 mark in the MEAC.
The league’s 2019 Coach of the Year, Jones came up hard in Queens. The child of a disabled single mother, he often didn’t know where his next meal was coming from.
“When you’re down 10 points and everyone’s falling apart, that’s not adversity,” Jones said shortly after assuming the interim job in 2013. “Adversity is when you look in the refrigerator, and there’s nothing in the refrigerator.”
Speaking from his Indianapolis hotel room Friday, Jones, 41, reflected on how far he’s come. The Spartans, win or lose, will benefit from the national exposure. Jones will continue to grow as a coach on the rise.
“The world’s going to be watching,” he said.
“So to come from a kid that didn’t even get paid to play basketball and never really wanted to be a coach to someone who’s making his first NCAA appearance, that got his first NCAA tournament win and gets a chance to play Gonzaga, I mean, it’s just humbling. And I don’t take it for granted at all.”