Charlotte <\/a>university is preparing to write its own Cinderella story.<\/p>\nQueens University of Charlotte is heading to its first-ever Division I NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament appearance, marking a historic milestone for the school\u2019s men\u2019s basketball program.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, students, alumni, and supporters gathered on campus to send off the Queens Royals as they departed for St. Louis, where they will play in the first round of the tournament.<\/p>\n
The celebration featured cheers, pom-poms, and a sense of pride for a program that has reached new heights.<\/p>\n
For Abigail Lemon, a former Queens volleyball player, the moment was especially meaningful.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is really exciting, they\u2019ve worked really hard, and they\u2019ve worked really hard as a university,\u201d Lemon said.<\/p>\n
Now a fifth-grade teacher at Myers Park Traditional School, Lemon brought her students to campus for the sendoff, hoping to inspire them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is who they get to look up to\u2026 now they know this can be a goal in life and it\u2019s a really positive experience for them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Students on campus said the team\u2019s success is shining a spotlight on the university, which is often overlooked due to its small size.<\/p>\n
\u201cQueens being the size of a city block\u2026 people say they didn\u2019t even know it was a school\u2026 so it\u2019s cool to see it in the NCAA,\u201d graduate students Catherine and Emily Thompson said.<\/p>\n
As the team boarded buses, supporters gave one final sendoff, hoping the Royals\u2019 first tournament appearance is just the beginning.<\/p>\n
Queens will face No. 2 seed Purdue at 7:35 p.m. on Friday. An official watch party is scheduled at Suffolk Punch in SouthPark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queens University of Charlotte is celebrating as its men’s basketball team prepares for its first-ever NCAA Men’s Basketball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-167594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}