The Fairleigh Dickinson Knights head coach Tobin Anderson spent the last week in the spotlight with his underdog Knights basketball team. A 16 seed had only beaten a number one seed once before (2018) FDU upset #1 seed Perdue 63-58 in the first round, last week.

Last week in order to get into the field of 64, Anderson's squad of underdogs had to win the play-in game against fellow 16-seed Texas-Southern, which they won convincingly by a score of 84-61.

Sunday night, FDU's cinderella run through the field of 64 came to an end, just shy of the Sweet 16, with a loss to 9th seeded Florida Atlantic University. FAU proved to be too much for the team responsible for busting thousands of brackets, with a 78-70 loss in a hard fought battle between the unlikely lower seeds.

The expression on Anderson's face (above) said it all as their miraculous run had come to an end.

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The Local Tie-In

There was a buzz in Central New York as FDU made its run through week one. People were putting two and two together that Anderson had gotten his coaching start at two Division III schools in CNY, and a handful of other colleges throughout the state, since his coaching career started as an assistant coach at Clarkson in 1996.

Anderson began his career at a high school in Ohio where he played for his father, the head coach of Interstate 35 High School in Truro. He played four years of college at Wesleyan in Connecticut from 1991 - 1995, where as of this year, he's listed as the 11th ranked all-time leading scorer at the Division III school.

Following his years as a college player, Anderson immediately entered coaching, serving as an assistant at Clarkson from 1996 to 1997, and the an assistant coach a Le Moyne College in Syracuse from 1997 until 1999. He would go back to Clarkson in 1999 as the school's head coach where he would remain until 2004. That's when Anderson came to the Utica area where he would serve as Hamilton College's head basketball coach in Clinton from 2004 until 2011. He spent two years as an assistant coach at Div I Siena in Loudenville near Albany before returning as head coach at St. Thomas Aquinas, a private college in Sparkle, downstate. Just last fall, he became head coach at Div I FDU in New Jersey.

The Knights Almost Didn't Make The Tournament

This year Anderson, in his first season with the Knights, accomplished the Northeast Conference championship game, which they actually lost to Merrimack. However, due to NCAA division reclassification rules, Merrimack was not eligible for the NCAA tournament, which allowed FDU to receive the NEC’s automatic bid to the tournament as conference runner-up. Fast forward to this week and Anderson now has an NCAA Division I Tournament record of 2-1.

(update) It was announced on Tuesday that Anderson is leaving FDU and has taken the vacant head coaching job at Iona University. The opening occurred when Rick Pitino took the head coaching job at St Johns.

We saw a lot of Anderson on television during the last week and one thing we learned is that he's incredibly emotional and wears each and every heartbeat on his sleeve. Check out the photo gallery below, entitled the many expressions and emotions of head coach Tobin Anderson.

The Many Intense Faces and Expressions of FDU Head Coach Tobin Anderson

Anderson who was an assistant coach at Le Moyne, and head coach at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY shocked the basketball world with 2 wins in this year's NCAA Tournament. Anderson is emotional and a man of many expressions while barking out inspiration and instructions to his FDU Knights.

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