On Friday afternoon at the St. Peter’s University campus in Jersey City, as six buses’ worth of students lined up for a ride down the Jersey Turnpike to Philadelphia for an improbable Sweet 16 date with Purdue, Eileen Poiani sat in the quad and reflected on how the school has never gotten much respect for its basketball teams.
Poiani, now a special assistant to the university president, has been following the Peacocks for the entirety of her 55 years at the school. She recalls watching them as a young faculty member in 1968 at Madison Square Garden; that year, St. Peter’s advanced all the way to the NIT semifinals after knocking off Duke in the quarters. But as Poiani — peacock earrings on her head, peacock scarf around her neck, and peacock bag at her side — recalls, it didn’t earn the school much attention. “The coach of Duke, who was quite arrogant, said something like, ‘What’s St. Peter’s, a hospital?’”
No one is overlooking the school, or its basketball team, today. Because after becoming the first No. 15 seed to advance to the Elite Eight with a stunning victory on Friday night, the Peacocks of St. Peter’s University (enrollment: 3,009) are at the center of the sports world.
That the team even got past the first round was a shock, at least to those not on campus. In the tournament’s opening round, they knocked off No. 2 seed Kentucky, one of the country’s most storied programs, a team led by a coach whose $8.5 million base salary is higher than the entire St. Peter’s athletics budget in 2020. Then last weekend, they upset 7-seed Murray State, a less prominent program than Kentucky, but one that entered the tournament with a 30-2 record and finished conference play a perfect 18-0.
While big-budget schools pull out all the stops for March games, the Peacocks didn’t even send their cheerleaders to the Kentucky game and only sent them to the second round after Peacock — as in the streaming service — reached out and offered to cover the costs. St. Peter’s didn’t send its pep band to either game, because it doesn’t have one.
The Peacocks had a fine enough season, finishing second in the MAAC to Iona before winning the conference’s postseason tournament. But history wasn’t on their side: Only two No. 15 seeds had ever advanced even to the Sweet 16, and the school was 0-3 in its three previous tournament appearances. (The most recent NCAA Tournament loss came in 2011 at the hands of Purdue, Friday night’s opponent.)
The buses in Jersey City on Friday lined up in front of Run Baby Run Arena, the team’s home gym, which takes its excellent name from the high-scoring 1968 squad that Poiani so fondly remembers watching at the Garden. The Peacocks’ last game there, on March 5, drew all of 577 fans.
Now the basketball team has taken over campus. Copies of the March 18 Daily News back page — headline: “Happy St. Peter’s Day!” — were taped to the library doors, and students were quick to point out which team members they had classes with. The school librarian — peacock tattoo on her shoulder — bragged that she’d snapped a selfie with senior forward KC Ndefo.
All of Jersey City, in fact, seems to be on their side now. One student said that for the first time, strangers have been shouting “Go St. Peter’s!” when she wears her school apparel around town. And as the students boarded the buses and I walked to my car to head to Philly, drivers on Montgomery Street honked their horns in support.
“This week’s been hectic,” says freshman Aarushi Bhasin. “It’s the first time our school’s gotten national attention like this. So it’s been a lot for everyone to take in. But everyone’s going wild.”
Inside the Wells Fargo Center, it was hard to tell exactly how many of those in attendance came to support the Peacocks, because it wasn’t just St. Peter’s fans exploding with each of their baskets. It was UNC fans and UCLA fans and neutral fans and any fans with a heart, really. During a second-half mascot dance-off, the poor kid in the Purdue Pete costume was booed as loudly as anyone in this building ever has been, and we’ll remind you that the building is in Philadelphia.
“It’s the sound of a fan base yearning for this moment,” said Greg Domino, a 2009 grad working in public relations who has notifications set on his phone for Peacock scores — a decision that until the team’s current seven-game winning streak brought him mostly middling news.
The students that came from campus arrived with no shortage of props: signs and pom-poms and blue beads and fake mustaches, a nod to facial-hair icon and wingfluencer Doug Edert, whose clutch free throws in the final seconds gave his team the three-point lead that would serve as the final margin of victory. One student wore peacock face paint. One had a peacock shaved into his head. Another carried a “Cocks Up” sign (which, we’ll note, was not among the options distributed by the Jesuit university as the buses boarded).
After the final buzzer sounded and coach Shaheen Holloway applauded his team’s ecstatic fans, the St. Peter’s sections emptied out, and the party spilled onto the concourses and out the arena’s front door and all the way to the buses waiting to take everyone back to Jersey City. They jumped and danced and shouted. One alumnus told me he’d cried.
“One of the greatest feelings I’ve ever felt in my life,” said freshman Brandon Ron as he headed out of the arena.
“Unbelievable,” said grad student Cecil Parmar. “Nobody expected anything of us, and now we’re in the Elite Eight. It’s incredible for the school, it’s incredible for Jersey City and for New Jersey.”
Out in the parking lot, I spotted Poiani, the assistant to the president and longtime Peacocks fan.
“I’ve been to zillions of St. Peter’s University games, and it was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life,” she said. “It was beyond belief.”
