March is awesome because on Selection Sunday you learn that a school exists, and by Thursday morning that school's basketball team means more to you than 80 percent of your family does.
High Point is one of those schools for an awful lot of the country right now. The school of just over 6,000 students, located in High Point, North Carolina — about 80 miles outside of Charlotte — participated in only its second NCAA Tournament on Thursday as a No. 12 seed. And they left an impression by knocking off No. 5 seed Wisconsin.
It's like Christmas, if Santa only delivered basketballs and TVs with the Turner Network channels installed.
High Point NCAA Tournament history
The Panthers do have some NCAA tourney history, but not at the DI level. In 1996 and 1997, the Panthers made the second round of the Division II NCAA Tournament, then moved up to DI in 1999.
In 2025, they made it to the Big Dance for the first time, taking on Purdue in the first round. The No. 13 seed lost 75-63 to the No. 4 seed.
The Panthers were a popular March Madness upset pick
Set to face off against Wisconsin on Thursday afternoon, the Panthers entered March Madness as a sneakily popular upset pick in the first round. They rode a high-flying offense into the tourney with a 31-4 record and Big South tournament championship.
After averaging 82 points per game last year, they took things up a notch in 2026 by posting 90 on a night-by-night basis. That's third nationally. The trio of Terry Anderson, Rob Martin and Cam'Ron Fletcher each averaged double-digit points this season. True to form, Martin led his team with 23 in their upset win over the Badgers. He was 4-of-10 from three. Anderson and Fletcher each grabbed 11 rebounds to go along with 15 and 14 points respectively.
Who is High Point's head coach?
High Point comes into this postseason with a new head coach: Flynn Clayman. An assistant on the previous coaching staff, Clayman definitely kept the machine well-oiled in his first year. He won the Big South regular and tournament titles and now has an NCAA Tournament win to his name.
Former head coach Alan Huss, who led the Panthers to their first March Madness bid ever, left High Point to become an associate head coach at Creighton. He played for the school and was an assistant there when High Point hired him in 2023. He technically took a demotion to return, but with the stipulation that he is the coach in waiting behind Greg McDermott.