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Dale Lindsey, ex-San Diego football coach, refutes USD’s retirement announcement: ‘I did not f—ing retire’

by www.cbssports.com Leave a Comment

USATSI

The University of San Diego has announced that head football coach Dale Lindsey is retiring after a decade on the job. The only problem is that Lindsey, 80, says that is not what happened.

On Tuesday, San Diego announced Lindsey’s retirement, and athletic director Bill McGillis put out a statement thanking Lindsey for his many contributions to the program.

“Coach Lindsey is leaving an incredible legacy at the University of San Diego. Beyond the extraordinary level of championship success our program has achieved under his leadership, Coach Lindsey established a standard of excellence for the young men in our program, and the lessons they’ve learned from him will last a lifetime.

The numbers speak for themselves, but they don’t even begin to tell the story of the impact he’s made at USD. His emphasis on – and commitment to – the value of a college education has been the true hallmark of his leadership from day one. He will retire from USD as one of the greatest head coaches in our university’s history and one of the elite head coaches in college football.

“Tremendous man. Tremendous coach. Tremendous leader. Coach Lindsey led our program with great integrity, and he has built a model program in every sense of the word. His presence and leadership have been a gift to our scholar-athletes, alumni, coaches and community. We have been blessed.”

At the time, it seemed like a heartfelt send-off for the winningest coach in San Diego history. That is, until Lindsey spoke to The San Diego Union-Tribune and refuted the school’s retirement announcement. Lindsey said he was forced out by McGillis.

“I did not f–ing retire,” Lindsey said. “I was shown the door and would like to coach. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.”

Lindsey went 80-30 in 10 seasons with the Toreros, including a 68-8 record in the Pioneer Football League. Under Lindsey’s watch, San Diego won at least a share of the conference title seven times and went to the FCS playoffs five times.

According to Lindsey, he still has a lot of gas left in the tank, and he definitely isn’t ready to kick back and relax in retirement.

“I wasn’t planning on retiring,” Lindsey said. “I know chronologically how old I am. But I don’t function like an 80-year-old man. If you just sit at home, you become a vegetable – and vegetables die sooner or later. I’ve seen too many coaches work their ass off for 40 years, think they’re going to go off to some golden parachute retirement. Then they’re dead in six months. I don’t want to be one (of those), nor do I intend to be one.”

When asked by the Union-Tribune whether Lindsey was fired, McGillis declined to answer the question directly, even when pressed on the matter.

“He is absolutely a fantastic head coach,” McGillis said. “He has demonstrated great integrity, values that match the University of San Diego, a commitment to education and mentoring his players in a way that will benefit them for the rest of their lives.

“And we look forward in the future to honoring him and celebrating a remarkable legacy.”

Baseball’s Most Valuable Teams 2023: Price Tags Are Up 12% Despite Regional TV Woes

by www.forbes.com Leave a Comment

Last season’s record revenue for Major League Baseball translates into all-time-high valuations for its teams.

By Mike Ozanian and Justin Teitelbaum

T he eroding economics of regional sports networks made little difference: Major League Baseball teams are still hot assets. Before Arte Moreno pulled the plug on selling his Los Angeles Angels in January, he would have gotten at least $2.7 billion, or $280 million more than the MLB record $2.42 billion that Steve Cohen paid for the New York Mets in 2020, according to people familiar with the sale process.

The average MLB team value is up 12% this year, to $2.32 billion. During the 2022 season, revenue (net of stadium debt service) increased 7.8%, to an all-time high of $10.3 billion. The top-line gain was driven by a 64% increase in ticket revenue (including postseason and spring training), to $2.4 billion (the 2021 season started with nearly all ballparks under capacity restrictions) and a 35% increase in premium seating (suites and club seating) revenue, to $$1.16 billion. But operating income (in the sense of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) came in at an average of $17.7 million per team, down 20% from the previous season as player costs (salaries, bonuses and benefits) rose 13%, to $5.2 billion, and an increase in SG&A expenses.

Among the league’s 30 teams, geography and regional sports network economics played pivotal roles in our valuations, especially with the recent bankruptcy filing of Diamond Sports Group, which has the local media rights to 14 of MLB’s 30 teams. The Angels benefit from being in Southern California — where, like in New York, Chicago and Boston, buyers are willing to play a premium price —and are televised on Diamond Sports Group’s Bally Sports West, a profitable RSN that’s unlikely to cut its $112 million rights fee to the team when it emerges from bankruptcy. (For the annual rights fee for all 30 teams last season, see the table below.)

MLB RSN Rights Fees and Viewership

The New York Yankees, baseball’s most valuable team, are worth $7.1 billion, 18% more than a year ago. The Bronx Bombers, who collected $143 million in cable money in 2022, are televised on the YES Network, the most-profitable and most-watched RSN in the country. YES throws off about $400 million in operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) and averaged 227,000 households for Yankee games in 2022. (Full disclosure: I’m co-host of the Forbes SportsMoney show, which airs on YES.) The Yankees have been MLB’s top-valued team every year since the list was first published in December 1998.

Alas, not all teams are as fortunate as the Angels or Yankees to play in big markets and have deals with profitable RSNs. The Lerner family has been trying to sell the Washington Nationals for over a year. Despite the Nationals’ revenue ($356 million in 2022) falling in the top half of MLB, the team has not been able to attract a serious offer above $2 billion. One reason: the Nationals and Baltimore Orioles, co-owners of MASN, the RSN that televises their games, have been entangled in an ugly legal dispute for many years regarding how much money the Nationals should get in rights fees.

All told, baseball’s 30 teams took in $2.3 billion in local television revenue in 2022, or 22% of their $10.44 billion in total revenue (before debt service). By contrast, during their most recently completed seasons, NHL teams got $838 million, or 14% of their revenue from local television, while the NBA took in $1.31 billion, or 13% of their overall revenue from local television rights. (In the NFL, except for the $107 million that teams got for selling their home preseason games last season, all media revenue is split evenly among the 32 teams.)

Media experts say the teams most at risk of having their local television fees cut are the Arizona Diamondbacks, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Guardians, Colorado Rockies, Minnesota Twins, Pittsburgh Pirates, Oakland Athletics and San Diego Padres because the deals the RSNs have with the teams are no longer economical for the sports networks. We kept the values of all these teams, save the Rockies and Padres, the same as they were a year ago. We nudged up the Rockies 6%, to $1.475 billion, and the Padres 11%, to $1.75 billion, because their stadium revenue (tickets, suites, advertising) should compensate for any decline in local TV revenue.

Methodology: Forbes’ team values are enterprise values (equity plus net debt) based on historical transactions and the future economics of the sport and each team. Revenue and operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) are for the 2022 season and are net of revenue sharing, competitive balance taxes and stadium revenue used for debt service. Our figures also include revenue and expenses from non-MLB events at the stadium that go to team owners, include spring training games and the revenue and expenses for team-owned minor league teams. Ownership stakes in regional sports networks, as well as related profits or losses, are excluded from our valuations and operating results, as are investments in real estate and other businesses. (For our all-inclusive sports ownership valuations, see our annual Sports Empires ranking.) Sources include sports bankers, team and league executives, public documents like leases and filings related to public bonds, and media rights experts. Click here for the full list of values and additional information on every team.

MLB’S MOST VALUABLE TEAMS 2023

1. New York Yankees

Value: $7,100 M

One-Year Change: 18%

Owner: Steinbrenner family

Operating Income: $16.3 M

2. Los Angeles Dodgers

Value: $4,800 M

One-Year Change: 18%

Owner: Guggenheim Baseball Management

Operating Income: $14.3 M

3. Boston Red Sox

Value: $4,500 M

One-Year Change: 15%

Owner: John Henry, Tom Werner

Operating Income: $71.6 M

4. Chicago Cubs

Value: $4,100 M

One-Year Change: 8%

Owner: Ricketts Family

Operating Income: $57.2 M

5. San Francisco Giants

Value: $3,700 M

One-Year Change: 6%

Owner: Greg Johnson

Operating Income: $74.9 M

6. New York Mets

Value: $2,900 M

One-Year Change: 9%

Owner: Steve and Alexandra Cohen

Operating Loss: -$138.5 M

7. Los Angeles Angels

Value: $2,700 M

One-Year Change: 23%

Owner: Arturo Moreno

Operating Income: $35.8 M

8. Atlanta Braves

Value: $2,600 M

One-Year Change: 24%

Owner: Liberty Media

Operating Income: $51.2 M

9. Philadelphia Phillies

Value: $2,575 M

One-Year Change: 12%

Owner: Middleton family, Buck family

Operating Loss: -$3.7 M

10. St Louis Cardinals

Value: $2,550 M

One-Year Change: 4%

Owner: William DeWitt Jr

Operating Income: $43.1 M

11. Houston Astros

Value: $2,250 M

One-Year Change: 14%

Owner: Jim Crane

Operating Income: $44.3 M

12. Texas Rangers

Value: $2,225 M

One-Year Change: 9%

Owner: Ray Davis

Operating Income: $58.1 M

13. Seattle Mariners

Value: $2,200 M

One-Year Change: 29%

Owner: John Stanton, Chris Larson

Operating Income: $83.8 M

14. Toronto Blue Jays

Value: $2,100 M

One-Year Change: 18%

Owner: Rogers Communications

Operating Loss: -$33.7 M

15. Chicago White Sox

Value: $2,050 M

One-Year Change: 16%

Owner: Jerry Reinsdorf

Operating Loss: -$53.4 M

16. Washington Nationals

Value: $2,000 M

One-Year Change: 0%

Owner: Lerner Family

Operating Income: $45.1 M

17. San Diego Padres

Value: $1,750 M

One-Year Change: 11%

Owner: Peter Seidler

Operating Loss: -$55.2 M

18. Baltimore Orioles

Value: $1,700 M

One-Year Change: 24%

Owner: Peter Angelos

Operating Income: $64.7 M

19. Milwaukee Brewers

Value: $1,600 M

One-Year Change: 25%

Owner: Mark Attanasio

Operating Income: $22.1 M

20. Colorado Rockies

Value: $1,475 M

One-Year Change: 6%

Owner: Charles Monfort, Richard Monfort

Operating Loss: -$13.1 M

21. Detroit Tigers

Value: $1,450 M

One-Year Change: 4%

Owner: Ilitch family

Operating Loss: -$29.5 M

22. Minnesota Twins

Value: $1,390 M

One-Year Change: 0%

Owner: Pohlad family

Operating Loss: -$30.3 M

23. Arizona Diamondbacks

Value: $1,380 M

One-Year Change: 0%

Owner: Ken Kendrick

Operating Income: $28.3 M

24. Pittsburgh Pirates

Value: $1,320 M

One-Year Change: 0%

Owner: Nutting family

Operating Income: $51.5 M

25. Cleveland Guardians

Value: $1,300 M

One-Year Change: 0%

Owner: Paul Dolan, David Blitzer

Operating Income: $38.3 M

26. Tampa Bay Rays

Value: $1,250 M

One-Year Change: 14%

Owner: Stuart Sternberg

Operating Income: $9.5 M

27. Kansas City Royals

Value: $1,200 M

One-Year Change: 8%

Owner: John Sherman

Operating Income: $27.8 M

28. Cincinnati Reds

Value: $1,190 M

One-Year Change: 0%

Owner: Robert Castellini

Operating Loss: -$12.6 M

29. Oakland Athletics

Value: $1,180 M

One-Year Change: 0%

Owner: John Fisher

Operating Income: $62.2 M

30. Miami Marlins

Value: $1,000 M

One-Year Change: 1%

Owner: Bruce Sherman

Operating Loss: -$0.5 M

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Videos show Tornado tearing through Greater Los Angeles area

by www.newsweek.com Leave a Comment

Video footage of a powerful tornado ripping through the Greater Los Angeles area has gone viral on social media.

The National Weather Service Los Angeles Twitter page confirmed that a tornado hit Montebello, California, at about 11:20 a.m. on Wednesday.

The state of California has been struck with extreme weather conditions in recent weeks, with some climate experts warning that such weather could become the new normal.

Tom Corringham, a research economist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, previously told Newsweek that California could expect more of these extreme weather patterns in the future as the climate warms.

He said: “Rising temperatures in California dry out our landscapes, leading to longer droughts and more severe fire seasons.

“Higher temperatures also allow the atmosphere to hold more water vapor, leading to more intense storms.”

The video of the tornado has been viewed more than 800,000 times since being posted on Twitter on Wednesday.

In the clip, debris can be seen swirling in the air as more parts of a building are ripped off its roof.

The tornado that struck the Montebello area on Wednesday was given an EF rating of 1 (from EF0 to EF5), meaning its three-second gusts were between 86 mph and110 mph.

In a public information statement, the Los Angeles NWS stated that the tornado on Wednesday was the strongest to impact the Los Angeles Metro area since March 1983.

“A small tornado briefly touched down in an industrial park and warehouse district in Montebello in the late morning hours of Wednesday, March 22, 2023. Seventeen structures were damaged, eleven significantly. A tree was uprooted and a power pole was snapped with the transformer ripped off,” it said.

The RAWSALERTS Twitter page has also shared footage of the tornado and the destruction could be seen in a clip that has gone viral. The video has so far been viewed more than 850,000 times.

The page captioned the clip: “Damaging Tornado touches down near downtown Los Angeles.

“Watch as a extremely rare damaging tornado touches down in Montebello California about 8 miles from downtown Los Angeles as Debris flies in the air reports of multiple buildings have been severely damage one person has been injured.”

In one part of the video, cars had their windows broken as the tornado passed. The clip also shows the damage sustained by a building.

Speaking about the damage sustained by the tornado, the NWS damage assessment report said: “The tornado primarily impacted an industrial warehouse/commercial business district.

“Warehouse roofing material consisted of wood frame structure with plywood and roofing material collapsed. Almost a total roof collapse occurred in one building.

“An HVAC unit was ejected from the top of the building. Skylights were broken. Wood cross beams collapsed. A power pole was snapped with a transformer

“Cars were damaged with windows destroyed. A healthy pine tree with a trunk diameter of one foot was uprooted. Seventeen structures were damaged and eleven structures had significant damage.”

Dr. Sticks and the Return of the Splitter

by www.nytimes.com Leave a Comment

PHOENIX — Triston McKenzie and Logan Gilbert both dress a few lockers down from a surprise American League Cy Young Award winner. In the Cleveland Guardians’ clubhouse in Goodyear, Ariz., it is Shane Bieber, who won in 2020; in the Seattle Mariners’, in Peoria, it is Robbie Ray, who won for Toronto the next season. Neither had finished in the top three in voting before they won.

Bieber would not be surprised if the next winner were McKenzie, his Cleveland teammate.

“He’s always had a great aura about him,” Bieber said. “He knows how good he can be.”

In the search for the A.L.’s next pitching superstar — in the mold of Bieber, Ray and a National Leaguer, Sandy Alcantara, the unanimous Cy Young Award winner for the Miami Marlins last season — McKenzie and Gilbert stand out.

Both match the indicators of youthful promise, durability, performance and relative anonymity that made Alcantara a prime candidate for a breakout. They are only 25 years old and withstood the demands of at least 30 starts and 185 innings last season, with earned run averages under 3.25.

And unlike other dynamic young pitchers in the league, like Dylan Cease of the White Sox and Alek Manoah of the Blue Jays, McKenzie and Gilbert have yet to be named on a Cy Young ballot. That may be about to change.

Triston McKenzie

The origin of baseball’s best nickname is rooted in curiosity and genetics. McKenzie grew up in Palm Beach County, Fla., the son of physical therapists, and he would read the medical books they kept around the house. The heart fascinated him, and he thought he might become a cardiologist.

“I genuinely enjoy learning about what makes me tick,” McKenzie said.

Knowing this about McKenzie, his youth baseball teammates often called him “Doc.” When McKenzie signed with Cleveland in 2015 — turning down Vanderbilt University, where his brother, T.J., now plays — he got a new nickname: “Sticks,” for his reedy frame.

“He didn’t like that at all, so we started calling him ‘Dr. Sticks,’” said Todd Isaacs, an outfielder who played against McKenzie in high school and spent four years in Cleveland’s farm system. “It resonated around the locker room, and it stuck. Now it’s something he thrives on: Dr. Sticks, writing those prescriptions every game.”

Baseball Reference lists McKenzie at 6 feet 5 inches and 165 pounds; no other player in its database is both that tall and that light. Yet McKenzie’s deep knowledge of the body helps him make it work.

“Despite my size, I’m still pretty strong; most of the strength coaches would tell you that,” said McKenzie, who worked 191 ⅓ innings last season, and 11 more in the playoffs. “And I think the majority of me being able to go out there perform at a high level is knowing my body and understanding how I move. Knowing that I don’t actually have to look a certain way sets my mind at ease.”

As well as he knows his body, though, McKenzie did miss the entire 2019 season in the minors with rotator cuff and pectoral strains. He returned to make a strong cameo with Cleveland in 2020 and has learned to be diligent to withstand pitching’s toll.

“You don’t know what exactly leads to injuries, but we had concerns that if he didn’t put a greater emphasis on his physical and prep routines that eventually, his frame might not hold up,” said Guardians General Manager Mike Chernoff. “And he has. It’s been an incredible turnaround for him.”

For McKenzie, trusting his body has given him the confidence to fearlessly attack the strike zone. He cut his walk rate to 2.1 per nine innings last season, from 4.4 in 2021, and lowered his E.R.A. by nearly two runs, to 2.96. McKenzie’s 0.951 WHIP (walks plus hits per inning) was the best among the 19 A.L. pitchers to make 30 starts.

McKenzie also expanded his profile off the field, working with young people in the Cleveland community (he was the Guardians’ nominee for the Roberto Clemente Award) and serving as Major League Baseball’s social media correspondent at the World Series. McKenzie said he hoped to bring fans closer to the game.

“With a lot of the other sports, it’s very open, and I feel like in baseball, there’s this sense of secrecy,” he said. “And the fans — especially young fans that don’t necessarily understand the game — don’t even get a chance to get their foot in the door and find their love of the game because it’s almost like they’re excluded from it.”

The World Series McKenzie covered, between Philadelphia and Houston, was the first since 1950 without a U.S.-born Black player on either active roster. McKenzie, whose father is from Jamaica, might be the best active pitcher among Black Americans and recently shared a Twitter message from M.L.B. celebrating the 15 Black pitchers with a 20-win season.

“I definitely take pride in being able to be part of that collective — just to even have my name considered in the same sentence as a Black Ace like Bob Gibson or C. C. Sabathia or Dontrelle Willis or Doc Gooden,” McKenzie said. “Knowing what it meant to me to be able to watch those guys as representation, it just makes my situation a lot bigger.”

Logan Gilbert

The day of his official visit to Stetson University in Florida, in November 2014, Logan Gilbert had a powerful vision of his future.

“I was watching a practice when Jacob deGrom won the Rookie of the Year Award,” Gilbert said. “It was pretty cool, because I was about to go to Stetson and it was like, ‘All right, guys make it from here.’”

By the end of the decade, deGrom had won two Cy Young Awards for the Mets, just as another pitcher from Stetson, Corey Kluber, had done for Cleveland. Neither was picked before the fourth round, and Gilbert was a first-round choice in 2018.

Even so, his availability at pick No. 14 was a relief to the Mariners. Jerry Dipoto, the team’s general manager, said the Mariners considered Gilbert the best overall draft prospect entering his junior season. Gilbert confirmed that assessment by leading the N.C.A.A. in strikeouts, with 163 in 112⅓ innings, but a drop in velocity worried some teams.

“We liked him when we drafted him and it was 92 miles an hour, and he came in the next spring training bumping 97,” Dipoto said. “That first year in our system, he moved through three levels and made it look easy. He’d throw a 75-pitch outing with 85 percent fastballs and just blow people up.”

Gilbert made only 10 starts above Class A before reaching the majors in 2021. He finished strong that September and did so again last year, when he ended his regular season with his first eight-inning start as a pro to help the Mariners clinch a wild-card spot.

Catcher Cal Raleigh ended the game with a homer that night, and reliever Matt Brash — developed in Seattle’s farm system after a trade from San Diego — earned the victory. It was a fitting way to vanquish a 21-year playoff drought for a team built meticulously from within.

“It’s a little more special when you’ve come up with those guys and you’ve gotten to see them grow,” Raleigh said. “You were on the same mission, sharing rooms with twin beds. Me and Logan, we’ve been roommates ever since the first fall camp when we got drafted. He’s a terrible snorer.”

Maybe the beds were just uncomfortable. Gilbert is 6-6, an imposing physical presence whose arm extension grades out in the 99th percentile of all pitchers. Only one peer with at least 20 starts last season — Philadelphia’s Zack Wheeler — reaches as far before delivering a pitch.

“It’s a really heavy fastball and he releases it, like, halfway to home plate,” Raleigh said. “It gets on you a lot quicker.”

Gilbert said he wished he had focused more in the minors on developing other pitches, but that he is making up for lost time now. He often watches footage of pitchers from Japan, intrigued by their mechanics and pitch varieties, and he is working this spring on a split-finger fastball.

That pitch was popular in the majors in the 1980s, but it fell out of favor over (possibly dubious) injury concerns. It remains essential to many pitchers in Japan, and Gilbert — whose enormous hands help him manipulate the ball better than most — believes it can help him.

“It’s somewhat of a missing link here in America, that it’s not at least messed around with more, because I think there’s some opportunity there,” he said. “I’ve tried a changeup for years, since college, but it’s always been tough on me.”

He added: “This is something that the grip can just do the work.”

Gilbert’s new pitch was his idea, with the Mariners’ endorsement. It should help sustain his success (he was 13-6 with a 3.20 E.R.A. last season) while lowering his high rates of hard contact. And if the splitter doesn’t work, chances are Gilbert will find something else.

“He’s an ongoing development, and I think he’ll always be that way,” Dipoto said. “My guess is that Logan will pitch into his mid- to late 30s because he wants to, and that he will reinvent himself many times.”

Kevin Harlan admits he’s ‘kind of embarrassed’ after March Madness clip goes viral

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Fox News Flash top sports headlines for March 22

Fox News Flash top sports headlines are here. Check out what’s clicking on Foxnews.com.

March Madness fans were delighted to see the reactions from broadcasters Kevin Harlan, Stan Van Gundy and Dan Bonner as they called Furman’s upset of Virginia last week.

The No. 13 Paladins capitalized on a brutal Cavaliers turnover with under 10 seconds to play. Furman’s J.P. Pegues hit the go-ahead three-pointer and helped the team to its first NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament win since 1974.

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A fan of the Furman Paladins holds up a sign in the first half against the San Diego State Aztecs in the second round of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Amway Center on March 18, 2023 in Orlando, Florida.

A fan of the Furman Paladins holds up a sign in the first half against the San Diego State Aztecs in the second round of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Amway Center on March 18, 2023 in Orlando, Florida. (Lance King/Getty Images)

Fans got an inside look at how Harlan calls the game from the press table. However, Harlan – who has gone viral before with his legendary voice – admitted he was a little bit “embarrassed” with the cameras being on him during the broadcast.

Harlan appeared on “Sports Media with Richard Deitsch” and said the camera was the last thing he was thinking about during the broadcast. He admitted he voiced his concern with CBS and Turner about having the camera on him during the game and did not want to show “how hot dogs are made.”

JOHN CALIPARI REACHES OUT TO WILDCATS’ MARKQUIS NOWELL AFTER ‘LITTLE KID’ COMMENT

TNT Analysts Stan Van Gundy and Kevin Harlan look on during Game 1 of the 2022 NBA Playoffs Western Conference Finals on May 18, 2022 at Chase Center in San Francisco.

TNT Analysts Stan Van Gundy and Kevin Harlan look on during Game 1 of the 2022 NBA Playoffs Western Conference Finals on May 18, 2022 at Chase Center in San Francisco. (Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)

“Kind of embarrassed by it,” he said of the virality of the moment. “I’m not comfortable with it. I understand why CBS would want to use that, and I guess I trust my bosses more than I trust myself in this situation.

“At the same time, if they asked me my preference, I would have said, ‘please don’t put that up there,’ and I still feel the same way.”

Entering Thursday with the Sweet 16 on the horizon, the clip had made more than 8.1 million impressions on Twitter.

Cheerleaders of the Furman Paladins perform during the second half against the San Diego State Aztecs in the second round of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Amway Center on March 18, 2023 in Orlando, Florida.

Cheerleaders of the Furman Paladins perform during the second half against the San Diego State Aztecs in the second round of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Amway Center on March 18, 2023 in Orlando, Florida. (Lance King/Getty Images)

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Furman was just one of three major upsets in the first round. Princeton defeated Arizona and Fairleigh Dickinson beat Purdue. Only Princeton is left in the tournament.

Fox News’ Joe Morgan contributed to this report.

Ryan Gaydos is a senior editor for Fox News Digital.