Saint Peter's Peacocks stun Purdue, become first 15-seed ever to make Elite Eight of NCAA tournament

PHILADELPHIA — The NCAA tournament has been played since 1939, an annual athletic carnival engineered to match the opposite ends of college basketball's caste system.

Over eight decades, thousands of games and dozens of precocious March darlings, Saint Peter's found a way on Friday night to set a new historical standard for underdog success in the NCAA tournament.

By stunning No. 3 Purdue 67-64 at Wells Fargo Arena, the Peacocks became the first team seeded No. 15 to advance to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament. It's a daunting historical marker, considering that no team ranked No. 13 or No. 14 and just two No. 12 seeds have advanced this far — Missouri in 2002 and Oregon State last year.

Saint Peter's will play the winner of No. 8 North Carolina and No. 4 UCLA for a chance to reach the Final Four on Sunday.

The Peacocks have a chance to continue authoring perhaps the greatest underdog story this tournament has seen. A 13-point underdog on Friday, Saint Peter's also was an 18.5-point underdog against Kentucky in the first round, making them the only team to win multiple games as a double-digit underdog in an NCAA tournament since it expanded in 1985, according to ESPN Stats & Information research. They were 8-point underdogs against Murray State in Round 2.

Outmanned physically by Purdue's giant post players and outclassed in the recruiting rankings, Saint Peter's exhibited the type of unflinching verve that will remain a standard in this tournament for years to come.

Saint Peter's rode a key late-game defensive switch by coach Shaheen Holloway to force 15 turnovers and hold Purdue to 42.6 percent shooting from the field and just 1-for-12 shooting from 3-point range in the second half.

Perhaps the most impressive