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Saint
Francis (PA) Red Flash Updated 03/15/25 |
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Location: Loretto, PA Enrollment: 1,700 Cost of Attendance: $60,500 Venue: DeGol
Arena Arena
Capacity: 3,500 Conference: Northeast Conference, NEC
(4th) Record: 16-17 (8-8) NET Rank: 296 Committee Rank: probably will be last Tournament History Appearances: 1 Final Fours: 0 Championships: 0 Win-Loss: 0-1 Most Recent: 1991, lost in First Round to 2-seed Arizona after beating Fordham in the play-in game |
Saint Francis University
This is Saint Francis a university in Pennsylvania. They need to put the "PA" in parenthesis not just because nobody knows where it is located, but also because there is a St. Francis College in Brooklyn, New York (those "Terriers" did previously compete in the same Northeast Conference as the Red Flash before the school terminated their entire athletic program in 2023), and a University of Saint Francis in Indiana (the "Cougars" compete in NAIA). Since the Red Flash are the only "Saint Francis" in Division I, maybe they can get rid of the "(PA)"??? Doesn't matter they will be forgotten about soon enough. Saint Francis University (SFU) is a private Catholic university in Loretto, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1847 by six Franciscan teaching Brothers from Mountbellew, Ireland, who had been given land in Loretto by Michael O'Connor, the first Bishop of Pittsburgh, to establish a school. The university was one of the first Catholic universities in the United States and the first Franciscan college in the nation. Although it originally only admitted males, it became one of the first Catholic Universities to become co-educational. In 2001, Saint Francis College was approved to become a university by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and renamed "Saint Francis University". The Red Flash are led by Saint Francis alumnus Rob Krimmel. Krimmel, who is in his 13th season with the Red Flash, is the second winningest coach in program history with 155 total wins. The Red Flash has advanced to the NEC Championship Game three times in the last seven years and the NEC Semifinals seven times in his first 12 seasons at the helm. Krimmel had no college coaching experience prior to becoming the Red Flash's head coach, but he was a three-year starter for the Red Flash in the late 1990s. The Red Flash made one prior NCAA Tournament appearance back in 1991. They had to participate in one of three play-in games where they hosted Fordham, beating them 70-61. However, unlike the later Opening Round and First Four games, these play-in games were not considered part of the NCAA tournament. This meant that the winners of these games were not credited with an NCAA tournament win, and only the teams that advanced to the field of 64 were credited with an NCAA tournament appearance. That 1991 tournament had some intersecting facts: 15 seed Saint Francis (PA) lost to 2 seed Arizona, 93-80. 13 seed Penn State upset 4 seed UCLA in the First Round, 74-69, before losing to Eastern Michigan in overtime in the Second Round. Final Four consisted of #1 UNC vs #3 Kansas and #1 UNLV vs #2 Duke. Duke (coached by Mike Krzyzewski) beat Kansas (coached by Roy Williams then) in the championship game, 72-65, for Duke's first national championship.
Duke's 79 77 win over UNLV in the Final Four
became one of the biggest upsets in tournament history. Duke
was an 8-point underdog in the game. UNLV was
undefeated entering the 1991 tournament. Indiana is
the last team to win the championship undefeated in 1976.
For the first time in tournament history a
15-seed defeated a 2-seed. Richmond defeated
Syracuse 73 69. Since then
this has happened ten additional times.
In the Final Four against Kansas, legendary
North Carolina coach Dean Smith was ejected from the game for leaving the
coach's box. DePaul's appearance is, the last appearance of an independent team in the tournament. The Blue Demons would join the Great Midwest Conference in 1991; Notre Dame, the last prominent independent, would join the Big East in 1995..
DeGol Arena
in the Maurice Stokes Athletics Center has been the home of Red Flash
Athletics for parts of five decades. The facility,
built in 1971 and named in honor of the late Maurice Stokes, houses all Saint
Francis athletic administration and staff. Maurice Stokes
played basketball at St Francis 1951-1955 and went on to a career as a pro in
the NBA. On March 12, 1958, in the
last game of the regular season, Stokes was knocked unconscious after he
drove to the basket, drew contact, and struck his head as he fell to the
court. He was revived with smelling salts and returned to the game. Three days later, after
recording 12 points and 15 rebounds in an opening-round playoff game against
the Detroit Pistons, he became ill on the team's flight back to Cincinnati
and lapsed into unconsciousness. Stokes later
suffered a seizure and was left permanently paralyzed. He
was diagnosed with post-traumatic encephalopathy, a brain injury that damaged
his motor-control center. Frankie the Friar Frankie the
Friar is the official mascot of the Saint Francis University Red Flash. The University's original friar mascot
debuted in 1983 and has been a mainstay at SFU athletics events ever since. The current rendition of Frankie first
appeared during the 2009-10 athletics season. THAT'S A
LOT OF TEETH!!! At least this
version is better than their original version from 1983. This is
from their 1983 introduction of their first mascot
YIKES! Somebody get that
mascot a doctor! So why are they The Red Flash and
not The Friars? The answer dates back to 1927 when the school had a pretty speedy
football. Because the team wore predominantly red uniforms, the fans and The
Loretto (the student newspaper) dubbed the team The Red Flashes. But the nickname was predominantly used by the football
team. Before then, the school's teams
went by a variety of unofficial nicknames, with the most popular being the
Saints. Others were the Franciscans and Frannies. The most popular
unofficial nickname was the Frankies, used
predominantly by the basketball team. The
Frankies nickname gained widespread use by fans and the
then-College but was discontinued after the 1971-72 season, giving way
to the current Red Flash moniker. The change
coincided with the opening of the Maurice Stokes Athletics Center. |
