March Madness 2022: Saint Peter's magic goes way beyond basketball

Editor's Note: This story was published before the St. Peter's Peacocks' historic run to the Elite Eight.

By Charlotte Wilder
FOX Sports Columnist

JERSEY CITY, N.J. — Andre Dasher stood at the top of the stairs that lead to the entrance of Run Baby Run Arena, the home of Saint Peter’s University men’s basketball. His son, Isiah, is a guard for the 15-seed team that took down Kentucky and has become the Cinderella story of March Madness 2022.

Isiah, who grew up in Jersey City, and his teammates were about to walk through the crowd that had gathered in the school’s small quad to send them off to the Sweet 16 in Philadelphia, where the Peacocks will face No. 3 seed Purdue. 

Andre was as close to the door as security would allow. Freezing rain fell on the gray Wednesday in March, but no one seemed to mind. 

"I’d love to talk, but my son plays," Andre said apologetically when I approached him. "And they’re about to come out — just let me have this moment. Thank you for understanding."

It was very easy to understand that the moment was, indeed, a huge one. I counted eight production trucks lining the street outside the gym, and news channels 7, 4, 11 and 12 had all set up cameras in the quad. A local news helicopter even hovered over the small cluster of Brutalist-style, brick buildings that make up the school. 

Being on the national stage is remarkably significant for Saint Peter’s, a tiny college of 2,355, especially because it’s so homegrown: 88% percent of full-time undergraduates are from New Jersey. The school also has a diverse student body: 18% is Black, 47% is Hispanic, and 8% is Asian.

The men’s basketball team is homegrown, too. Head coach Shaheen Holloway is one of five Black coaches in the Sweet 16, and Doug Edert is the team’s sole white player. Dasher might be the only one from Jersey City proper, but eight of the 15 Peacocks players (including Edert and KC Ndefo) are from the New York or New Jersey area. Even players such as Daryl Banks III, who is from California, and "the twins," Fousseyni and Hassan Drame, who are from Bamako, Mali, went to high school in the tri-state area. 

Holloway is also a local. He was raised in Queens and went to St. Patrick’s High School in Elizabeth, New Jersey, which has since become The Patrick School. Holloway was a McDonald’s All-American and led Seton Hall to the Sweet 16 as a senior in 2000. Now, as a coach, he has led a New Jersey team to the second weekend for the first time since then. 

"[These players] believe in what we are doing and that they could continue to keep doing it," Holloway said. He’s open and animated when he talks about his team, passionate and intense but also warm and funny. It isn’t difficult to see how he has inspired his players to such success. 

"And that's what I love about this team," he continued. "They're not satisfied. They’re like, ‘Why not us? Why can't we go in there and play with them?’ When I talk about these guys, I get goosebumps because these guys act like they've been there before."

Every year, there’s a school that pops up in the tournament that most people have never heard of. That team is usually a 15- or 16-seed, and it usually gets knocked out in the first round. But this year, Googling Saint Peter’s paid off — because it has stuck around. 

The university has a tiny fraction of the resources that big programs enjoy; Holloway made less than $300,000 in 2019, and Kentucky coach John Calipari made $8.5 million this season. Holloway also had to keep his team grounded through COVID and a gym renovation during which they didn’t have a home court to compete or practice on.

"Everybody talked about St. Peter's old gym, how bad it was," Holloway said. "But we had a gym. When you don't have a gym, you know, that old gym looked pretty good." 

The team played wherever it could, often at high schools without shot clocks in the surrounding area. It was tough, a fitting quality given its home state. 

"It’s hard-nose, blue-collar, in-your-face basketball," Holloway said. "And that’s what New Jersey basketball is all about. It’s guys wanting to push themselves."

Chris Chavannes, the head coach at The Patrick School, recently coached Banks III, but he was also an assistant coach at the high school when Holloway attended. The two coaches still talk every day, and Chavannes said Holloway is the only one who could have guided Saint Peter’s through the upheaval of the past two years and come out the other side with unheard of levels of success. 

"I think he made it easier than it would be for other coaches," Chavannes said. "He grew up in a tough environment, growing up in Queens and coming to St. Patrick's. We weren’t who we are today, as far as the level we play, at all. He helped put us on the map, and when he came here, we had our own fair share of struggles. We had a tiny gym, a rough environment. We didn’t have a place to play all the time. 

"He experienced that in high school and then went to Seton Hall for a rebuilding year. When you go through those experiences, it helps you feel what players are going through. When you don’t make excuses, you get results."

Adding to the team’s resilience was the fact that most of the players on Saint Peter’s weren’t used to being the best on their AAU or high school teams. They didn’t have dreams of a one-and-done season before heading to the NBA, like players on the Kentucky team they took down. 

Edert, a guard, led his Bergen Catholic High School team to its best season ever, a record previously held by Edert’s high school coach, Billy Armstrong, himself a B.C. alum. But Edert didn’t start on varsity, and he had to work to prove himself. 

"He only played some varsity as a freshman," Armstrong said. "He made three 3s in his first game, so we knew he was good. But then he had to be our point guard his junior year based on the team. So Doug didn’t get as many shots up that year. It’s his willingness to be a great teammate and care about the team that makes his success so earned."

Armstrong joked that he has been so inundated with calls from reporters that he needs to start charging the Edert family for doing their PR. He added that Edert, who has made waves on the internet for his mustache, was not allowed to have facial hair at Bergen Catholic because the school has a strict dress code and no-facial-hair policy. 

Armstrong told me that he thought Edert’s mustache would be great for an NIL deal. The next day, Edert signed one with Buffalo Wild Wings.

The New Jersey basketball world is very tight-knit. Seton Hall assistant coach Dwayne Morton, who coached against Holloway when Holloway was in high school and then in tandem with Holloway as assistants at Seton Hall, was the head coach at Abraham Lincoln High School when Ndefo was a player there. Morton said Ndefo had no Division I offers besides Saint Peter’s.

"He was a leader," Morton said of Ndefo. "A quiet leader on the court. He was definitely a good teammate. He was an easy fit. I was kind of confused why he didn’t have the ball in his hand more when he got here because he made plays — like he’s doing now." 

Morton also said Holloway is a "legend in New York City." 

It’s not hard to see why. Holloway and his team’s impact is much bigger than basketball. Nearly everyone I spoke to mentioned that the players on the team have high GPAs and are dedicated students and that this magical run has already made a big difference for the school. At the start of the tournament, the university’s website crashed because so many people were looking it up. 

One of the people gathered at the send-off, Denise Miller, works at the university and manages events on campus. She said the phone has been ringing nonstop with calls from people who want to have gatherings there. 

"I just had someone calling today for a wedding because they want to have it here in Jersey City," she said, standing by the business school building with her arms crossed for warmth. "And just because of this, they want to have it here. At the bottom of their email, it said, ‘Go Peacocks!’"

A few minutes before 6:30, the crowd had grown to fill the quad. Dr. Sarah O’Brien, a professor of education and African literature, took out her phone to show me pictures of herself with the Drame twins and Edert. O’Brien said her family has been supporting the school since 1932 and that her sister also works there.

Nearby, Heather Murphy yelled "Go Peacocks!" She wore a homemade peacock mask. She has no connection to Saint Peter’s other than that she loves basketball and is from New Jersey.

"It’s New Jersey ball," she said. "It’s gritty, but with love. It’s an Italian mom in a kitchen, you know? She knows her way around, and there's heart and love, but don't mess with her."

At exactly 6:30, cheers rose from the crowd. The team walked out of the gym and through the throngs of people — it all lasted about 15 seconds before they rounded the corner to the street. As the players walked downhill toward the bus, people came out onto the porches of the houses that line Montgomery Road across the street from the athletic center. 

The homes look like the set of a movie about a working class town with a whole lot of heart. Each one has a clapboard or shingle facade and is built into the hill as it slopes downward, with steps leading up to the entrance. 

Everyone at Saint Peter’s hopes the team’s Cinderella story will translate to more applicants, more money and more respect. Diana Meza, a senior communications major from Jersey City, approached me as the team’s bus pulled away, the vehicle surrounded by fans and led by a police escort. 

Meza’s assignment was to ask people what this run means to them, and she wanted to know why I thought the story was worth covering. But I was much more interested in what she had to say. 

"I think a lot of people look at New Jersey, and we are literally bypassed," she said. "It’s putting us on the map. Everyone just looks over New Jersey so much, especially Jersey City, because we're so tiny, and it's an urban city. This definitely helps us. It shows who we are to the world. We're dedicated people, first-generation students at Saint Peter’s trying to make it big in the world."

New Jersey, the butt of so many jokes, is finally having some respect put on its name. If the Peacocks make it past Purdue, their impact on this place will only grow. 

But even if they don’t, this team has already made this small school a whole lot bigger. 

Charlotte Wilder is a general columnist and cohost of "The People's Sports Podcast" for FOX Sports. She's honored to represent the constantly neglected Boston area in sports media, loves talking to sports fans about their feelings and is happiest eating a hotdog in a ballpark or nachos in a stadium. Follow her on Twitter @TheWilderThings.