Ansley Almonor was once at a mid-major trying to beat the best -- now he's on the other side

Ansley Almonor was once David trying to take down Goliath as a standout at Fairleigh Dickinson — and he did, helping the Knights defeat Purdue in the historic No. 16 vs. No. 1 upset in the 2023 NCAA Tournament.

The 6-7 forward out of Spring Valley, NY played 25 minutes in that 63-58 win. He’s got three seasons’ worth of those opportunities playing in the Northeast Conference, FDU racking up buy games as a mid-major underdog year after year after year. Seton Hall, Northwestern, St. John’s, Virginia, Pittsburgh and Illinois are among the lumps they took in that span, that win over the Boilermakers being the obvious (and lone) headliner. Almonor’s story is like many of his teammates with Lamont Butler coming from San Diego State, Amari Williams from Drexel, Koby Brea from Dayton and Andrew Carr starting his career at Delaware.

Mark Pope has called every matchup ‘the biggest game we’ve played all season long and that’ll never change,’ pushing his team to stay in the moment and never get too high or too low for any opponent. Duke is one of the best teams in college basketball while Jackson State is one of the worst — and the Wildcats handled both.

They haven’t needed much help staying level-headed, though. Why? They’ve been in those mid-major shoes hoping to shock the world.

That’s where having seven seniors — six being fifth-years — comes in handy.

“We’re a mature team. We’ve been through a lot of ups and downs throughout our whole career,” Almonor told KSR following the team’s blowout win over Jackson State. “We’re older and we know what it takes to be a good team when it comes down to the wire and how we need to play.”

They’re not perfect and moments of slippage occur from time to time, but the approach has been consistent, and it shows. Winning has been the top priority, obviously, but it’s also about getting better so those wins can continue to stack up as competition improves.

“Games like these, it’s about us and us getting better,” he continued. “Obviously it’s hard sometimes to stay focused or whatever, but as an older team, it’s easy to not focus on other teams, but focus on us getting better at what we’ve got to get better at so we can move to the next game. We can continue to get better so when it’s time for March and April, we can be the best team we can be.”

Almonor has felt the joy of pulling off a historic upset from the other locker room. Now his goal is to stop anyone else from experiencing something similar — at least while he’s wearing that Kentucky uniform.

There haven’t been any early threatening signs of Fairleigh Dickinsons or Evansvilles or Saint Peters or Oaklands, as far as he’s concerned. That locker room refuses to get caught slipping.

“I was thinking about this the other day. Like a year ago, I was on the other side. I was on the other team coming into a school like this,” Almonor told KSR. “But it’s like the energy around our locker room, the energy we all have, it’s just all so mature. There is never a doubt in my mind we’re going to go out there and win. It’s not like we’re going to B.S. or not give our all.

“There’s just such a mature energy around the team. We’re here for business, we’re not gonna let anybody step in the way of what we’re going to get done. I don’t even have that worry, for real.”

The end result? Well, he’s excited to show Big Blue Nation the long-term payoff.

“This is the most together team I’ve ever been on,” he said. “It’s the closest team I’ve ever been on, most talented team I’ve ever been on. It’s just crazy. Being here, I can’t wait to see what we do when it comes time for March and April. We’re really going to put on a show, for sure.”