Princeton basketball: Tosan Evbuomwan is spreading March Madness to England

LOUISVILLE – It’s not very often – perhaps never – that a question during an NCAA Tournament press conference comes from England.

But there it was, via Zoom in an unmistakable Queen’s English accent, from a reporter in Newcastle during Princeton’s Sweet 16 pregame interview session Thursday.

The query was for Tigers senior Tosan Evbuomwan, a point forward whose scintillating play has spread a touch of March Madness across the pond.

“Everybody is rooting for you," the reporter said. "You’ve got audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. How are you feeling about that right now?”

The questioner wasn’t halfway finished as a wide smile broke across Evbuomwan’s face.

“Very thankful and fortunate to have audiences from both sides,” he said. “I've definitely felt the love since the tournament started and before that as well, obviously. It’s been great, hopefully being able to have an impact on the younger generation back home with British basketball and obviously with the Princeton community. So I appreciate you guys’ support – it means a lot.”

Evbuomwan will be a central figure as 15^th-seeded Princeton tries to take down sixth-seeded Creighton in Friday’s South Regional semifinal (9 p.m., TBS). No matter what happens, though, he’s achieved something few players ever can take credit for.

He’s ignited a passion for college basketball in anther country.

It wasn’t like that over there when he was growing up. The Big Dance was nowhere near the average sports fan’s radar in Great Britain.

“It definitely wasn’t,” he said. “Being in it now and being over here, I definitely missed out on a lot as a kid. The culture is unbelievable here, to hear about kids missing school to watch the games. And all of these brackets – I never filled out a bracket even to this day. I definitely missed out as a kid.”

A father's pride

Tosan’s father Isaac, who is a gynecologist in England, has Dance fever, too. He and other family members traveled to Princeton for Senior Day March 4 and planned on staying a week through the Ivy League Tournament. After the Tigers won that, punching a ticket to the NCAAs, Isaac and the family flew home. Then, two days later, the dad made an impulse decision to fly back – and all the way to Sacramento. The plan was to watch the first-round game against Arizona before heading home.

“And then they bloody won!” Isaac said.

Tosan relished his father's presence.

“That was awesome,” Tosan said. “He’s my biggest fan, biggest supporter."

Random Princeton fans were asking Isaac to pose for photos. The whole thing made his head spin.

“As a parent, it’s hard to describe the emotion,” Isaac said. “You can’t put a price on that experience.”

The moment was especially poignant because Isaac raised Tosan and his older brother Toju as a single father for some formative years after his wife and their mother, Michelle, died in 2012.

“I’m so proud of the two of them,” Isaac said. “They made it easier for me because of the way they coped with the whole thing and carried each other. As a parent, what else could you ask for?”

Isaac remarried in 2019.

“What I’ve taken from those years was, we’ve been incredibly lucky with the way we’ve come out of the loss,” he said.

His relationship with his boys drew even closer when it was just them, and it wasn’t easy to send Tosan to college in another country – until he saw what Princeton basketball was about.

“They are a family,” Isaac said. “Especially with me living so far away, as a parent, that gives you peace of mind.”

His son hasn't seemed so far away this week, appearing all over the news in Britain.

“I sent Tosan a news clip from the BBC, because they’ve been talking about him," Isaac said. "It’s surprisingly all over the place; everyone is talking about the Sweet 16 and March Madness. And I’m thinking, ‘OK, until now I’ve never heard anything about the NCAA, never mind March Madness.”

On Monday, when Isaac finally returned to work, “all around the hospital people were like, ‘Oh, we actually watched the games,’" he said. "My wife is from Scotland and everyone tuned in there as well.”

So Isaac will be watching Princeton-Creighton, start time be damned (it will tip at 1 a.m. his time).

“I’ll be in Princeton gear, screaming at the television,” he said.

A surprisingly large chunk of his country will be screaming with him.

More memorable moments

Vincenzo’s is a white-linen, old-school Italian restaurant in downtown Louisville with a dress code (no jeans or shorts, “coat and tie is very appropriate”) and a four-star menu that includes a baked Italian sub and its signature ground-veal crepes.

Princeton ate a team dinner there Wednesday, shortly after arriving in town, and was granted a dress-code exemption (celebrity treatment!). Junior forward Zach Martini had a telling encounter in the bathroom.

“A gentleman in the bathroom saw my Princeton sweatshirt and said, ‘Where is Princeton? Is it an Ivy League school?’" said Martini, who hails from Warren and played high school ball at Gill St. Bernard’s. “That shows me we’re still not on the map with these Power-5 schools. We hold weight in terms of academics, but our athletics exposure might not be there around the country. To see we’re finally getting out on the national stage in terms of basketball is pretty cool.”

Gov. Phil Murphy visited practice Tuesday and Sen. Cory Booker FaceTimed with the team from Washington, D.C. Thursday.

But one interaction, right after a huge campus pep rally sent the team off Wednesday, was most poignant to head coach Mitch Henderson.

“Jadwin is right next to Frick Chemistry Lab, where I get my coffee daily, and I see an organic chemistry professor there and he’s always like, ‘Hey Mitch,’” Henderson explained. “As I was getting on the bus (after the pep rally) he was like, ‘COME ON!!!!”

Henderson pumped both of his fists into the air, mimicking the professor's exuberant gesture.

“To feel connected to your school...that’s what it’s all about,” Henderson said. “We’ve been on CNN, Good Morning America, the Jim Rome Show – we’ve had an amazing week. But that, to me, has been the most special thing.”

Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. He is an Associated Press Top 25 voter. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Princeton vs Creighton: Tosan Evbuomwan has March Madness in England