Division I's shortest roster (Fairleigh Dickinson) faces its biggest star (Zach Edey)

The Purdue men's basketball team now knows it's opponent. Fairleigh Dickinson beat Texas Southern, 84-61, in the NCAA tournament's first round/play-in game in Dayton on Wednesday night. Now here's what you need to know about one of the most interesting teams in the tournament:

Fairleigh Dickinson has the shortest roster in Division I

Fairleigh Dickson's roster averages 6-foot-1, making it the shortest in Division I. Perhaps you've heard, Purdue has the favorite for national player of the year in 7-foot-4 Zach Edey?

The Knights' regular rotation tops out at 6-6, 219-pound Ansley Almonor. The rest of the starting lineup is 5-foot-8 Demetre Roberts, 5-foot-9 Grant Singleton, 6-foot-3 Joe Munden and 6-foot-4 Sean Moore. Six-foot-2 Henry Blijen, 6-foot-6 Jo'el Emanuel and 6-foot-1 Braydon Reynolds also played at least 10 minutes in Wednesday's victory.

In addition to Edey, Purdue will send out 6-foot Braden Smith, 6-foot-4 Fletcher Loyer, 6-foot-5 Brandon Newman and 6-foot-6 Mason Gillis.

The Boilermakers will have an average of a 5-inch advantage per position.

Fairleigh Dickinson is very confident

After Wednesday's victory, here is what first-year Fairleigh Dickinson coach Tobin Anderson had to say:

"The more I see Purdue, the more I think we can beat them," Anderson told his players in the locker room after Wednesday's win advanced the 16th-seeded Knights to face No. 1 Purdue on Friday night.

Only one No. 16 seed has ever beat a No. 1 seed (UMBC over Virginia in 2018). But a No. 3 seed Purdue team did lose to No. 15 St. Peter's in the NCAA tournament last season. St. Peter's (Jersey City) and Fairleigh Dickinson (Teaneck) are just 30 minutes apart in New Jersey.

Fairleigh Dickinson coach: 'The more I watch Purdue, the more I think we can beat them.'

Fairleigh Dickinson might be the most surprising NCAA tournament team

The Knights went 4-22 last season.

They also returned no starters for Anderson. He was hired in early May, long after most transfers had found new schools leaving him with an important question:

Who was going to play for Fairleigh Dickinson this season?

“We had a practice the night I got the job, and I left that practice thinking to myself, ‘Oh my God, this is going to take us four or five years to be competitive,’” Anderson told The New York Post in an article well worth a read. “I knew I was stepping into a tough situation, but that practice really opened my eyes that this was going to be a real, real long process.

“We’d lost our best players and the guys that were back had all been role players. The biggest thing we had to figure out was how we were going to reconfigure the roster in a short amount of time.”

Anderson brought Roberts, Singleton and Moore with him from his successful Division II program at St. Thomas Aquinas. Almonor and Mundin were reserves at Fairleigh Dickinson. Blijen is a transfer from Longwood, where he was a reserve. And Emanuel and Reynolds are freshmen. The team is 20-15.

“To do (this) in the first year with all the challenges … I’ve been a head coach for 21 years and this is one of the most incredible seasons of all because we never saw this coming,” Anderson said to the New York Post.

Fairleigh Dickinson made the NCAA tournament without winning its conference title

Merrimack beat Fairleigh Dickinson 67-66 in the Northeast Conference tournament but the Knights earned the league's automatic bid since Merrimack is in the middle of a four-year reclassification process from Division II, making it ineligible for the NCAA tournament.

Fairleigh Dickinson was the first team to make the NCAA tournament this season when it won its semifinal game since the outcome of the championship didn't matter.

So how, exactly, does Fairleigh Dickinson win games?

Here's something Purdue fans don't want to hear: Fairleigh Dickinson presses.

A lot.

The Boilermakers led by 17 points with 6:40 to play in the Big Ten tournament title game when Penn State started to press. It closed to within 66-65 with 15 seconds left before Purdue held on for a 67-65 victory.

"You've got to be able to pass and catch and take care of the basketball," Purdue coach Matt Painter said after the game. "It ends up being like Keystone Kops. We have to have some guys that have a little more savvy. It's really not that hard. It bewilders you at times."

The Knights want to play fast.

They average 77.8 points per game, 42nd in the nation, and do it by taking more shots than their opponents. Fairleigh Dickinson averages 62.7 field goals per game, 14th-most in the country and 7.6 more than their opponents. Opponents commit 15.5 turnovers per game, 336th in the nation.

That's the secret since the Knights are good but not great at shooting (.520 on 2s, 124th; .346 on 3s, 161st) and allow their opponents to shoot better, .554 and .365.

Roberts is the top scorer at 16.7 ppg but does it with volume, shooting 42.6% overall and 33.3% on 3s, while adding a team-best 4.3 assists per game. Singleton averages 14.3 ppg, shooting 38.5% on 3s, 3.3 assists and 1.9 steals. Almonor (13.9 ppg, 37.6% on 3s, 4.7 rpg) and Mundin (10.4 ppg, 34.4% on 3s, 4.9 rpg) are the other top producers.

“Guys want to play fast and score points,” Anderson said to northjersey.com prior to the season. “The problem is, guys say they’re going to do that and don’t actually do it. We actually do it.

“We have a lot of confidence in the way we do things, we believe in it, and we’re not going to be different now. You reach a certain point where you are who you are.”

Was Fairleigh Dickinson a person?

Yes, Colonel Fairleigh Stanton Dickinson Sr. He was co-founder of the surgical instrument manufacturer Becton Dickinson in 1897 and, in 1942, used his fortune to found Fairleigh Dickinson College. He served in World War I, was president of Rutherford National Bank, director of the American Surgical Trade Association and president of the Manufacturers Surgical Trade Association.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Purdue vs. Fairleigh Dickinson: 6 things to know