NORFOLK, VA (WTKR)- After a two-year hiatus from the NCAA Tournament, Norfolk State is back in the big dance and made the trek to Raleigh Wednesday afternoon.
The message from the Spartans as they departed Echols Hall was a simple one- no pressure.
"You have to take away the pressure from yourself," said head coach Robert Jones. "Everybody wants to pull the upset, but you've got to understand you really are the guys who are the super underdogs. You should be playing, honestly, as free as anybody. Florida, they're supposed to go to the national championship game. That's a lot of pressure. With us, they say that we'll be home by Saturday, so there's no pressure in that."
"Our biggest thing is the pressure isn't on us," added senior guard Brian Moore Jr. "Our pressure is to prepare the right way and have the belief all week. That's what Coach has been preaching to us, just have the belief all week."
The green and gold enter as 28.5 point underdogs to the No. 1 seeded Gators. Florida will not be the first team from a power conference Norfolk State is seeing this season. The Spartans have faced Baylor, Stanford and Tennessee, playing most closer than expected. NSU is also looking to become the third No. 16 seed to pick up an NCAA Tournament win. Those seeds are 2-154 in first round games all-time, but both the victories have come since 2018.
"I just told that stat earlier today about two out of the last six years it's been done, which makes you feel better, but its still only 33 percent," Jones said. "We've just got to be better than them for 40 minutes. We don't have to beat them in a series, we don't have to beat them four out of seven times like in the NBA. We've just got to be better than them for 40 minutes."
"We've had a lot of tight games with a lot of high majors already this year," Moore added. "Stanford, Tennessee, to the point where we were down by three versus Baylor at halftime, so we know we can go out and beat one of those teams. It's about going and showing that to the world now."
Norfolk State and Florida tip off Friday night at 6:50 PM in the first round of the West Regional. WTKR News 3 will be on the road with the Spartans and have reports from Raleigh on-air and online beginning Thursday.
