Stetson, DeLand community sends Hatters off to NCAA Tourney

The Stetson University community showed up to send their men’s basketball team off to their first NCAA tournament in school history.

The No. 16-seed Hatters will face off against the No. 1-seed UConn Huskies on Friday afternoon. Students, faculty, and staff gathered on campus to cheer on the team as they boarded the bus. The players are headed to Brooklyn, New York, to play the Huskies at the Barclays Center.

Stetson president Chris Roelke said it was a long-awaited accomplishment. "They did it with integrity. They did it with humility. They did it through brotherhood and friendship," Roelke said. 

MORE HEADLINES:

As the team headed out, roughly two hundred supporters lined the streets of Downtown DeLand, thrilled to send the Hatters off.

"We’re proud of them. Very proud of them," Orange City Marvin Douglas-Harless said. 

"It’s very exciting. It’s really great that we’re in a community that’s going to kind of come together for things like this," a Stetson graduate said. 

A head-to-head with the defending champions is no easy task, but the Hatters seem ready for the challenge. Head coach Donnie Jones is hopeful the team’s Cinderella run kicks off Friday.

"To have this kind of excitement on a national stage is second to none," Jones said.