(This is your education of teams in the big dance. Stats? No way! You need something to talk about, pop-culturewise, during the tourney. So, we start our profiles here.)

ORAL ROBERTS GOLDEN EAGLES

Welcome back to March Madness, ORU! You’ve done the Summit League proud. And you’ve done your founder, Mr. Oral Roberts, proud too!

Who is Oral Roberts? Let’s go back through history …

In 1963, Oral created his own university. He said he was simply obeying a command from God, and when students came in, Oral had them sign an honor code stating they would not smoke, drink, dance (?!?!), party of have premarital sex.

And they couldn’t go see “Rent”.

In 1977, Oral said he saw the vision of a 900-foot Jesus who told him building the City of Faith Medical and Research Center would be a success. The building opened in 1981.

Unfortunately, the giant Jesus couldn’t fit through the door. Read how  God nearly killed Oral after the jump!

Problem was, after a few years, the business was losing money hand over foot. So, in 1987, Roberts said, during a fund raiser, if he didn’t get $8 million in donations, God would “call him home”. Fearing a vengeful God murdering a guy begging for money, folks donated $9.1 million.

Guess what? It still didn’t work: By 1989, the Center was $25 million in debt and closed it’s doors. It’s now used for office space.

Still, his hoops team has been pretty successful: This will be ORU’s fifth tournament appearance, and third straight. And to whoever they play in round one, we warn you: If you see a 900-foot Jesus outside the arena, you might want to start packing your bags.

Or get ready for millions of dollars in debt. One or the other.