The Seton Hall Pirates shocked the college basketball world last night with a huge win over Maryland Thursday night. Seton Hall entered the season ranked 12th with high expectations, but had dropped two straight and were coming off an embarrassing loss to Rutgers.

Senior Quincy McKnight stepped up in Myles Powell‘s absence with 17 points, eight rebounds, six assists and two steals.  The Pirates played terrific defense forcing Maryland to shoot many contested jumpers. Fellow senior Romaro Gill, was protecting the basket at will, and made Maryland work for every layup attempt. The 7’2” Jamaican center finished with an impressive six blocks. Their other 7’2 center Ike Obiagu, also blocked six shots of his own.

In total the Pirates blocked an astounding 15 shots and the Terrapins shot an abysmal 27% from the field. Maryland also committed 17 turnovers. “Today we proved to everyone we can still play and we got a good win,” said McKnight. “This is a confidence booster to everyone on the court today. The big fellows are down there and if you are going to go down there, you better know what you are going into. We’re willing to let guys go by us to go meet the big fellows down there.”

Sophomore Jared Rhoden also stepped up for the Pirates with eight points, 12 rebounds and 3 assists in 33 minutes. “This was a big program win for us. That’s all coach (Kevin Willard) kept reiterating to us at practice all week, that we lost two of our star players and guys had to step up. It was a collective win. We all stepped up,” Rhoden told the media.

At the end of the game it was very close. Leading 49-42 with a minute left, the Pirates almost gave the game away missing three free throws and throwing the ball away when they were trying to break Maryland’s press. This lead to a Anthony Nelson Jr. three pointer that just missed. Seton Hall was then fouled and made their last free throw to close out the game.

At halftime Maryland was down 27-18, good enough for their lowest scoring first half this season. “The world is not coming to an end, but we are highly disappointed as a coaching staff and as a team. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom. I don’t know if it is rock bottom. We’ll see. If it is, hopefully we’ll come back and get better,” said Maryland coach Mark Turgeon.

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Maryland has now lost two straight and we will expect to see their ranking fall when next week’s polls come out.

Seton Hall had a night to forget in a 20-point loss to unranked Rutgers last Saturday, but Thursday’s game was a big statement game. What’s even crazier about the win was the absence of the Pirates’ top two players Powell and Sandro Mamukelashvili. Powell, now in his senior year, is the Pirates best player with season averages of 21.2 points, 4.4 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game. Mamukelashvili, a junior, is a solid power forward and second in scoring behind Powell contributing 10.9 points, 4.7 rebounds and 1.7 assists per game.

The Pirates face Prairie View this Sunday before conference play begins next week.

Just a few months ago, Rasheed Sulaimon was the first player that Coach Mike Krzyzewski dismissed in his 35 years with Duke. At the time, he was released from the team for unspecified reasons.

“Rasheed has been unable to consistently live up to the standards required to be a member of our program,” Krzyzewski said in a press release. “After Rasheed repeatedly struggled to meet the necessary obligations, it became apparent that it was time to dismiss him from the program.”

Afterwards, a Chronicle report came out, claiming that Sulaimon was accused of sexual assault by two different women during Duke’s 2013-14 campaign. Though no charges were filed with the school or the police, the coaching staff were made aware of the situation; however, allegedly the school did not hold up their end of the bargain by investigating the allegations.

Since then, the controversy has died down — largely thanks to March Madness and Duke’s championship run. But the actual reason for his dismissal is still unknown. Yet Rasheed, in his first comment since the initial sexual assault report, professed his innocence

“Me being dismissed from the team had nothing to do with this allegation,” Sulaimon told ESPN. “I have never sexually assaulted, not only anyone on the Duke campus, but anyone period. It’s not in my nature at all. I have great respect for the role of women in society. I would never demean or do anything to a woman in this manner. No, I’ve never done anything like this in my life.”

And because nothing came from the accusation, Maryland is now pursuing Sulaimon. This was later confirmed by ESPN’s Andy Katz.

In his three-year career with Duke he averaged 10 PPG, 2 APG and 2.7 RPG. But let’s not forget that at one time he was a five-star recruit with the possibility of being a first-round NBA draft pick. So it is understandable why schools are going after Sulaimon.

But Maryland is not the only one. “Maryland is among ten-to-15 schools recruiting former Duke guard,” according to reports. Yet it seems that Maryland is the current favorite and the most interesting team by far: especially since they are also an ACC team.

Sulaimon is scheduled to graduate in the summer, which will make him instantly eligible the following year. So, for now, everyone will just have to wait and see where he chooses.

Yesterday, the undefeated Princeton Tigers took on the Maryland Terrapins in the Women’s NCAA tournament. Besides going undefeated in the 2014-15 season, the Tigers gained national attention when it was revealed that Barack Obama’s neice played for the team.

Leslie Robinson, daughter of Micelle Obama’s brother, is a freshman that barely sees time on the highly competitive team, but that did not stop the commander-in-chief from coming to Saturday’s opening round matchup between the Tigers and Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Now, prior to yesterday’s game at Maryland, Terrapins’ police officials received an eight-minute voicemail claiming that “a man was driving on campus with a Glock handgun in his possession,” according to USA Today. This call, prank or not, was linked to the NCAA tournament matchup: specifically to Leslie Robinson.

As a result, Maryland took the threat extremely serious, adding extra security to the Xfinity Center. On top of this, undercover officers were placed near the Princeton bench. Coincidentally, the secret service also attended the game because of the presence of  Supreme Court justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, both Princeton alums. 

In the end, the eighth-seeded Princeton lost to Maryland 85-70. As for Robinson, Princeton head coach Courtney Banghart knew about the potential threat, but sheltered Leslie from the distraction.