<\/p>\n
There were plenty of basketball fans in Long Beach cheering after no. 13 Murray State’s buzzer-beating upset of no. 4 Vanderbilt on Thursday, none of them louder than former Murray State president, and current Long Beach State president, F. King Alexander. <\/span>President Alexander actually admits he was in meetings, but knew the Racers had picked up their first NCAA since 1988, when his cell phone started ringing off the hook.<\/p>\n When we called to ask him how he was doing after the game, the first thing he said was, “I’ve got a Murray State number one jersey hanging in my bedroom,” he said. <\/span>The basketball-afficianado Alexander has a special affinity for the team not just because he was president of the school from 2001-2005, before coming to Long Beach, but because head coach Danero Thomas was one of his final hires there, a character coach brought in to rebuild the university’s reputation after NCAA sanctions (similar to Long Beach State’s Dan Monson). <\/span><\/p>\n While emphasizing first and foremost he won’t cracking the frame and donning that Racers jersey\u2014”I wear our <\/em>jerseys,” he said\u2014Alexander was still proud of his friends and former colleagues. <\/span>“You’ve gotta realize how outsized they are. <\/span>Vandy’s got these big kids, they’re probably outspending them 6-1,” he said. <\/span>“But they were 30-4 in the season, they took Berkeley to a five-point game right at the beginning of the year.” <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Alexander is hoping to see the team whose jerseys he’s currently wearing pull off a similar feat, preferably not five years after he leaves the university. <\/span>“Well, hopefully we’ll be doing the same thing,” said Alexander. <\/span>“Everyone back there is teasing me about it right now, actually, asking me, ‘Well where are you<\/em> right now?'”<\/span><\/p>\n The Racers are a model of what Long Beach State aspires to, a perennial contender, having won their conference and earned a bid 13 of the last 18 years; overshadowed by the larger programs in basketball-crazy Kentucky (like Kentucky and Louisville), it’s always nice to see a little guy pull off the upset.<\/p>\n Alexander said he was too busy to fill out a bracket this year, but would have been inclined to pick Murray State, just as he’d never pick against Long Beach State. And for anyone who thinks Murray State is going to get run off the court by no. 5 Butler, Alexander has a message: “Beware the Racers.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There were plenty of basketball fans in Long Beach cheering after no. 13 Murray State’s buzzer-beating upset of no. 4 Vanderbilt on Thursday, none of them louder than former Murray State president, and current Long Beach State president, F. King Alexander.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1736"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=1736"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}