The NCAA basketball tournament in the US is nicknamed The Big Dance and California's St Mary's College, with seven Australians on the roster, know what it is like to be the ugly ducklings failing to garner an invite.
Last year they were a controversial snub.
This year they will be getting their groove on.
St Mary's, Australia's unofficial US college basketball destination with the NBA's Matthew Dellavedova and Patty Mills alumni and a yearly migration of players crossing the Pacific to play for the college, received an invite on Sunday (Monday AEDT) to the three-week, 68-team knockout style tournament.
They face an athletic Virginia Commonwealth University in their round one contest in Salt Lake City on Thursday.
"It's a lot better feeling than last year, that's for sure," Sydney point guard Emmett Naar, who nervously watched the NCAA selection committee TV broadcast with his teammates and fans at the college's Moraga campus, told the San Jose Mercury News.
Naar, with former Geelong Grammar centre Jock Landale and Melbourne Grammar forward Dane Pineau, will be a key trio for the Gaels who are considered long shots by Las Vegas bookmakers with 90/1 odds to win the tournament.
The 211cm tall, 116kg Landale has become a sensation in the Gaels' 28 win, four loss season by averaging 16.8 points and 9.3 rebounds.
The 21-year-old was named on Friday as one of five finalists for the 2017 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Centre of the Year Award.
Bookmakers may have virtually ruled out St Mary's as tournament winners, but there is a strong chance an Australian will be on a victorious squad with many of the favourites - Duke, Kentucky, Louisville, Arizona and Baylor - featuring Aussies.
Gippsland freshman forward Jack White is part of the Duke Blue Devils.
Sydney's Isaac Humphries is a member of the Kentucky Wildcats while Sudan-born, Australian raised duo Mangok Mathiang and Deng Adel are X-factors for the Louisville Cardinals.
Another Sudanese-born giant, Jo Lual-Acuil Jr, is a rim protector for the dangerous Baylor Bears and Keanu Pinder, son of former Harlem Globetrotter and NBL star Tiny Pinder, is an important bench player for the in-form Arizona Wildcats.
Gorjok Gak, continuing the remarkable record of Sudanese refugees settling in Australia and becoming elite basketball big men, is a member of another tournament dark horse, the Florida Gators, while guard Dejan Vasiljevic's Miami Hurricanes are also in the hunt.
One of the potential Cinderella stories of the tournament could be Nigerian-born, Australian rebounding machine Chima Moneke who helped his fledgling UC Davis basketball squad earn the first invite in the university's history.
The goggle-wearing Moneke was named this weekend's Big West Tournament most valuable player for leading his Aggies to the title and clinching an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament.
Another potential Boomer is Wollongong's 203cm guard/forward Xavier Cooks who powered another US college minnow, Winthrop University, to the tournament.
The top four seeds are Kansas, Villanova, North Carolina and Gonzaga.
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