Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, which forced the cancellation of that year’s March Madness tournament just days before it started, fans around the globe have been waiting for sports to truly be back. Last year’s March Madness was played without a crowd, but it didn’t quite feel the same without fans in the stands.

So this year’s National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournament was the first tournament in three years with fans in the stands — and boy, was it worth the wait.

This year’s iteration of March Madness saw top team after top team go down. Three of the tournament’s four top-seeded teams went down by the end of the Sweet Sixteen, including losses by No. 1 seeds Gonzaga and Arizona within mere hours of each other. This year’s Elite Eight had the highest combined seeding of all time, with two double-digit seeds making the cut. 

North Carolina went on an improbable Cinderella run as the No. 8 seed, defeating top-seeded Baylor and fourth-seeded University of California, Los Angeles en route to the Final Four.

They met arch-rivals Duke in the Final Four, the first time the two teams had ever faced off in the NCAA tournament. The Tar Heels defeated Duke in one of the greatest college basketball games of all time, ending the career of legendary Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski.

Despite all of this chaos, one team stood out amongst all the others — the St. Peter’s Peacocks.

St. Peter’s was the No. 15 seed out of 16 in the bracket’s East Region. This already put them in a tough position, as they had to play second-seeded Kentucky in the first round. To this point, there had only been nine 15 over 2 upsets in tournament history. Kentucky was also a popular pick to win the tournament by experts because of their ability to play a lot of different styles.

Despite all this, St. Peter’s did the impossible and defeated Kentucky in overtime, pulling off the biggest upset of the tournament.

Here are some numbers to put that into perspective.

Kentucky is one of the proudest programs in the country, with massive amounts of booster support. They spent $18.3 million on basketball this year. Compared to St. Peter’s meager $1.6 million budget, Kentucky spent almost 12 times as much on basketball as the Peacocks. This made St. Peter’s upset over Kentucky the biggest upset in terms of expenditures in tournament history.

St. Peter’s head coach Shaheen Holloway’s salary last year was around $275,000 — less than the lowest-paid Kentucky assistant coach. It pales in comparison to Kentucky head coach John Calipari’s lifetime contract, which shells out $8.5 million annually.

How about student enrollment? Kentucky’s 30,473 student population dwarfs that of St. Peter’s which enrolls 2,300 students. Kentucky’s legendary basketball stadium, Rupp Arena, seats 23,500 people. St. Peter’s Run Baby Run Arena? 3,200.

Kentucky was also loaded with future NBA talent. Their roster featured the National Player of the Year, Oscar Tshiebwe, as well as a likely lottery pick in guard TyTy Washington and the number one ranked high school recruit, Shaedon Sharpe.

Meanwhile, St. Peter’s was at an extreme talent disadvantage to every team they played. Only two players on the Peacocks reached double-digit points per game. Their leading scorer, Daryl Banks, averaged 11.3 points per game – good for 693rd in the nation. None of their players were nationally ranked coming out of high school. For comparison, Kentucky has finished with a top-two recruiting class nationally every year since 2008.

As if this upset wasn’t enough, the Peacocks then steamrolled Murray State, a team that had lost two games all year, punching their ticket to the Sweet Sixteen. This made them the third No. 15 seed to ever make the Sweet Sixteen, joining Florida Gulf Coast in 2013 and Oral Roberts in 2021.

However, the Sweet Sixteen brought one of their toughest tests yet – the Purdue Boilermakers. Purdue was a No. 3 seed, but they were a very good team that had been ranked number one in the nation at one point. They also had National Player of the Year finalist and likely top 5 NBA draft pick Jaden Ivey. But it didn’t matter — the Peacocks got the three-point win, making themselves the first No. 15 seed to ever reach the Elite Eight. 

They eventually met their match, losing to fellow Cinderella story North Carolina by a margin of 69-49. But this loss shouldn’t overshadow a run that may never be replicated.

St. Peter’s had setback after setback. They overcame incredible amounts of adversity and a massive talent disadvantage to come within a game of the Final Four. They had some of the worst facilities in the nation, which included coaches’ offices that regularly flooded and a weight room that directly neighbored classrooms, meaning that they couldn’t play music.

And yet they persevered to fell some of the biggest programs in the nation, going where no 15 seed had gone before.

It’s the perfect Hollywood story. And it could only happen in March.