Every time Michael Houge steps into his team’s college basketball gymnasium, the Run Baby Run Arena, he and his Saint Peter’s University teammates are reminded of and inspired by the Peacocks’ historic March Madness run.
The Chattanooga Christian School graduate hopes he can help another Cinderella-like story for head coach Bashir Mason’s team from Atlantic City, New Jersey.
The spotlight once again shines on Saint Peter’s after winning the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference championship to earn an invitation to the NCAA tournament to face second-seeded Tennessee Thursday at 9:20 p.m. in Charlotte, North Carolina. The game will be televised on TNT.
“Our team mantra is toughness,” Houge said in an interview with the Times Free Press Tuesday morning, just hours before his team’s sendoff on their campus. “We have a great culture here. We play a lot of defense and we are just a really scrappy team. We are not scared of anybody. We have a tough bunch of dudes who are not backing down from any challenges. You know what the history is with Saint Peter’s and upsets, so we just want to keep that going.
“No one lets us forget our Elite Eight run in 2022. There is a standard that is set here. We are not just happy to be here, we come here to win.”