Jaspers and Pirates Look to Advance

The Manhattan Jaspers and the Seton Hall Pirates both look to move into the Sweet Sixteen with upset victories today. The two teams have more than a things in common - a Roman Catholic background, relatively small enrollments, history that dates back to the 1850s, and both are playing games in Raleigh, North Carolina today against teams from North Carolina. Both games will be difficult, with the Jaspers and Pirates playing against higher-profile teams in a hostile environment (Raleigh is a stone's throw away from Wake and Duke), but anyone that was watching games on Thursday and Friday know that almost anything can happen.

Besides the similarities of their schools, Manhattan and Seton Hall have a player connection as well. Jaspers guard, Jason Wingate and Pirates guard Andre Barrett both went to Rice High School and scrimmaged against each other in high school. Seton Hall and Duke also have a connection. At Seton Hall, Andre Barrett is roommates with Andre Sweet, another Rice product, who played briefly at Duke, Seton Hall's opponent today. At Duke, his roommate was Chris Duhon, who leads Duke. Sweet transferred from Duke to Seton Hall because he missed home and his friend, Andre Barrett. All these connections has Gothamist's head is spinning.

Readers might recognize Duke's mascot from that great Mr. Peanut advertisement.

Manhattan takes on Wake Forest at 3:40, which follows the Seton Hall-Duke game, which is at 1:10. Both games will air locally on CBS-2.