March Madness: FDU's Ansley Almonor 'not going to shy away' from Purdue giant Zach Edey
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On the surface, Ansley Almonor’s assignment Friday seems impossible.
The Fairleigh Dickinson basketball team’s center stands 6-foot-5 and weighs 220 pounds. The guy he’s matched up against for Friday’s NCAA Tournament Round of 64 game, Purdue superstar Zach Edey, is 7-4 and 295.
If anyone has a clue of how Almonor might take on the consensus national player of the year, it’s his high school coach.
“He knows what he’s up against,” said Mike Doherty, who coached Almonor at St. Joseph Regional High School in Montvale. “He knows what he can and can’t do. He’s going to maximize his best chances of making Zach Edey think about things. And he’s not going to shy away from contact.”
There is only one Edey, but Doherty has witnessed a smaller-scale version of this story. In the 2020 Bergen County Jamboree final, St. Joe’s was an underdog against Bergen Catholic and Almonor, who had zero Division 1 recruiting interest, went to battle against 6-foot-9, Notre Dame-bound postman Matt Zona.
“Everyone was like, ‘Oh, he’s going to get manhandled,’ and he did just the opposite,” Doherty said. “He played his best ball against Zona.”
Almonor scored nine points and limited Zona to 13.
“It wasn’t’ like, ‘I’m going to shut this guy down,'" Doherty said. "It was, ‘I’ll do whatever it takes to make his life difficult.’”
And he did.
“Ansley, back then even, understood – I can’t play behind him; I might as well shake his hand as he’s going up to the basket,” Doherty explained. “So he worked his tail off mixing things up in the post, getting in front of him and harassing him as much as he could."
That tone was set at the onset.
“The game opened up with them trying to feed Zona, and Ansley stole the entry pass,” Doherty said.
St. Joes prevailed 67-61, a triumph that took place at Fairleigh Dickinson’s Rothman Center. Then-FDU coach Greg Herenda wound up providing Almonor’s only Division 1 scholarship offer, which he accepted after a postgrad year at Our Savior Lutheran in New York City. Even then, he flew under the radar until this winter, when he won the Northeast Conference Most Improved Player award under first-year coach Tobin Anderson.
“It really is an awesome story of a guy who is putting his nose to it and digging down and working his tail off,” Doherty said. “It’s a testament to his belief in himself and the school. Now he’s getting to reap the benefits.”
Doherty was at a school function during FDU’s First Four win over Texas Southern Wednesday, when Almonor earned Player of the Game honors after tallying 23 points and eight rebounds. He’ll be glued to the TV Friday when the 16th-seeded Knights (20-15) take on the East Region top-seeded and Big Ten champion Boilermakers (29-5) in Columbus, Ohio (6:50 p.m., TNT).
“Ansley will be confident and he should be – confident that, ‘I deserve to be here; we belong on this stage,’” Doherty said. “He’s relishing the opportunity to be on this stage, and St. Joe's is cheering him on. We are tremendously proud of everything he’s doing.”
PREDICTION
After slogging it out in the meat-grinder Big Ten at a snail’s pace all season, Purdue might be in for a shock with the way FDU pushes the ball, spreads the floor and shoots away. That doesn’t mean the Knights are going to win, but they have a chance to make the Boilermakers uncomfortable, especially if Almonor's range draws Edey out of the paint defensively. A No. 16 seed has beaten a No. 1 just once in the 64-team era (which began in 1985), so the odds are stacked against New Jersey’s newest Cinderella, but this game will be closer than most predict. Purdue 80, FDU 70.
Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. He is an Associated Press Top 25 voter. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: FDU basketball vs. Purdue preview and prediction for March Madness
