NCAA's March Madness Cinderella UMBC Has Jersey Shore Ties

TOMS RIVER, NJ — The team that pulled off one of the biggest upsets in NCAA men's college basketball history has ties to the Jersey Shore.

Nate Dixon, one of the assistant coaches of the University Maryland Baltimore County Retrievers, got his coaching start on the staff at Toms River High School South in 1994.

UMBC stunned prognosticators and busted brackets Friday night with its stunning 20-point victory over Virginia in the first round of the NCAA tournament. It was the first victory by a 16 seed over a No. 1 seed in the history of the men's tournament (16th seed Harvard toppled No.1-seeded Stanford in the women's NCAA tournament in 1998). In addition, Virginia, which was 31-2 coming in, had been the No. 1 team in the nation heading into the tournament.

Mitch Powitz, the assistant baseball coach at Toms River South, was a first-year teacher and junior varsity basketball coach when Greg Albano, then the head coach of the Indians' basketball team, said Dixon would be joining the staff as an assistant coach.

"(Dixon) had asked to coach because of his friendship with Corey Albano," Powitz said. Corey Albano, Greg's son, had gotten to know Dixon because the two played together in the Jersey Shore Basketball League, a summer league that includes college players, local stars and professionals, including NBA stars. According to his biography, Dixon spent three summers playing in the JSBL.

"He was a nice guy who wanted to get into coaching," Powitz said. "We were .500 that year. I was more management and he was Xs and Os."

Dixon, who also coached an AAU team, the Jersey Shore Warriors, during his stay in New Jersey, moved on to his first assistant coaching job at Belmont Abbey in 1997, according to his biographies on the UMBC and UNC Charlotte websites, and has coached with several programs since.

"The impressive thing was he made it to the University of Florida staff of Billy Donovan in nine years," Powitz said. Dixon was there for two years, helping to recruit the players who took the Gators to back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007. Dixon missed out on the championship years because he had moved on to his next challenge.

"We last spoke about four years ago when Tymere Berry was a senior and deciding between football and basketball," Powitz said. "Nate was at UNC Charlotte then as video coordinator," working on the staff of Ryan Odom, who is Dixon's boss at UMBC. Berry ended up taking his football talents to Monmouth University, but Powitz still keeps tabs on Dixon's career.

"I'm into the whole six degrees of separation thing, and coaching trees," Powitz said.

Dixon joined Odom at UNC Charlotte in 2012 and has been one of Odom's assistants ever since, moving with him to Lenoir-Rhyne, a small college in Hickory, NC in 2015-16, and then joining Odom's staff on the Retrievers in May 2016.

So if you're looking for a reason to root for the Retrievers (who are represented by the Chesapeake Bay retriever, not the golden retriever, supporters are quick to point out) on Sunday when they take on Kansas State (tip is scheduled for approximately 7:45 p.m.), where, here's a Jersey Shore connection, even if he was only here for a short time.

The UMBC Retrievers bench, including assistant coach Nate Dixon, celebrates a growing second half lead against the Virginia Cavaliers during the first round of the 2018 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Spectrum Center on March 16, 2018 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images