CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) \u2014 When Queens University men\u2019s basketball coach Grant Leonard boards the team\u2019s plane for St. Louis for its first-round NCAA Tournament game against No. 2 seed Purdue, he\u2019ll be accompanied by his staff, players and Buddy the Street Dog.<\/p>\n
Buddy is a 2-foot tall ceramic figurine of a golden shepherd, which Leonard calls the team\u2019s \u201cspirit animal.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was an idea that originated last summer when Leonard overheard his players talking about being \u201cdogs\u201d on the court as they prepared to make a run at the NCAA Tournament in their first season of eligibility after making the jump from Division II in 2022-23.<\/p>\n
One of Leonard\u2019s assistants piped in to ask the players, \u201cWell are you guys street dogs or PetCo dogs?\u201d That was a reference to whether they are tough or spoiled. The players naturally responded by saying they were street dogs.<\/p>\n
A few days later, Leonard went on Amazon and purchased Buddy.<\/p>\n
Now, Buddy travels with the team and is given out after each game to the player who displays the most grit on the court based on things playing hard-nosed defense, diving for loose balls and taking charges. <\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted our guys to identify with being hungry and fighting for everything,\u201d Leonard said. \u201cSo I found Buddy and we adopted him. Now Buddy the street dog has his own chain, and his own social media site and everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Queens is the smallest school in the tournament in terms of enrollment size with approximately 1,500 students. <\/p>\n
If you don\u2019t know much about the school, you\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\n
When Purdue center Oscar Cluff was asked by a television reporter earlier this week what he knew about Queens, he responded \u201cit\u2019s in New York somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, not quite.<\/p>\n
Queens University is located in downtown Charlotte \u2014 which is known as the \u201cQueen City\u201d in honor of Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the wife of British King George III \u2014 just a couple of miles from where the NBA\u2019s Hornets play.<\/p>\n
Last week, Queens joined North Dakota State, UC San Diego, and Northern Kentucky as the only men\u2019s basketball programs to reach the Big Dance in its first year of NCAA eligibility after defeating Central Arkansas 98-93<\/a> in the Atlantic Sun championship.<\/p>\n For Queens, the last couple of weeks have been all about firsts.<\/p>\n This is the first time they will fly in a private jet to an away game and the first time they\u2019ll have fans \u2014 about 300 are expected to attend \u2014 at their team hotel.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re all excited to soak in the moment,\u201d Leonard said.<\/p>\n But that doesn\u2019t mean the Royals are coming to have fun. Players have made it clear that they\u2019re headed to St. Louis seeking an upset.<\/p>\n If they do, it will be a team effort.<\/p>\n Although Atlantic Sun preseason player of the year Chris Ashby had 34 points and 10 3s in the conference championship game, the Royals are one of three programs in the country that have six players averaging double figures.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s really no pressure for us as playmakers because we know anybody can go off in any given moment, so there\u2019s no pressure on one person to go out there, score the ball, or make all the hero plays,\u201d guard Nasir Mann said.<\/p>\n Mann, the team\u2019s leading scorer and rebounder, brings veteran leadership and tournament experience after going to March Madness with McNeese State in 2023-24. Outside of that, the Royals don\u2019t have anyone who has played on this stage.<\/p>\n Leonard, who is expected to roll out one of his funky holiday-themed sweaters for the game, said he knows that his team might be nervous coming in facing a program like Purdue. The Royals are 25 1\/2-point underdog, per BetMGM Sportsbook.<\/p>\n If they are, he plans to remind them about Buddy the Street Dog.<\/p>\n \u201cI told them in the past two conference tournament games that you\u2019re going to be nervous \u2014 and that\u2019s OK,\u201d Leonard said. \u201cBut just don\u2019t be nervous and try to shoot your way out of it. Be nervous and make a hustle play. Do the little things, the tough, things that Buddy likes to do. And that will get rid of the butterflies.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n AP March Madness bracket: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ncaa-mens-bracket<\/a> and coverage: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/march-madness<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) \u2014 When Queens University men\u2019s basketball coach Grant Leonard boards the team\u2019s plane for St.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,684,85182,217,325,94883,588,113,55358,354,4418,29197,70983,1567,231,772,55359,1544,1773,12513,3751,12737,66,44276],"class_list":["post-779120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-charlotte","tag-chris-ashby","tag-college-basketball","tag-college-sports","tag-grant-leonard","tag-in-state-wire","tag-indiana","tag-march-madness-ncaa-tournament","tag-mens-college-basketball","tag-missouri","tag-mo-state-wire","tag-nasir-mann","tag-nc-state-wire","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaa-mens-bracket","tag-ncaab","tag-north-carolina","tag-purdue-boilermakers","tag-purdue-boilermakers-mens-basketball","tag-queens","tag-sports","tag-uc-san-diego-tritons"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116869575675241153","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}