March Madness: Hofstra cheers twice after bizarre NCAA bracket glitch
Hofstra head Coach Speedy Claxton, center, and players watch the NCAA Tournament Selection Sunday broadcast at Hofstra on Sunday. Credit: Jeff Bachner
Hofstra waited 25 years to hear its name called on the NCAA Tournament’s selection show. Due to a strange technical glitch on Sunday night they actually got to experience it twice.
As the matchups for the East bracket were being unveiled on a large screen in front of the team and its fans, St. John’s was placed as the No. 5 seed. Then the screen cut to an image of the Pride. Assuming that meant they were going to be slotted to face St. John’s, the room went crazy with excitement.
Only Hofstra wasn’t seeded there. Northern Iowa was. Somehow the signal from CBS was mixed up.
While it wasn’t reflected in the actual broadcast seen by almost everyone else, because the Pride was linked into a dedicated network feed rather than just watching on television, they saw only themselves jumping up and down for close to 20 seconds.
It took several minutes of confusion and smartphone-checking for the room to settle down and realize that Hofstra was not going to be pitted against their New York rival.
Eventually, Hofstra was announced as a No. 13 seed in the Midwest Region with a Friday game against No. 4 Alabama in Tampa.
That’s when the celebration kicked off. Again.
For the record, Hofstra seemed fairly excited about playing St. John’s.
“Out of all the games, I think all the boys would agree, that’s the game we wanted the most,” senior forward German Plotnikov said. “A nice New York rivalry. We played them two years ago and it was a two-possession game. It would have been fun to see who is the better team this year.”
“That would have been nice,” Hofstra coach Speedy Claxton said. “New York vs. New York. It didn’t happen. But we’ll definitely be rooting for them from afar. And who knows, we might cross paths at some point.”
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
