JERSEY CITY, N.J. — Saint Peter’s University is so small, one could motor down John F. Kennedy Boulevard and drive right past it without noticing.

A pedestrian walkway bears the name of the Jesuit-run school, but it’s easy to miss the 5-foot letters amid an urban forest of apartment buildings, storefronts and duplexes in the state’s second-most-populous city.

The Peacocks weren’t just little-known nationally before this year’s NCAA Tournament. They don’t even have a high profile locally. Barring traffic, it’s a 10-minute drive through the Holland Tunnel from the tiny campus to Lower Manhattan, but the city skyline isn’t even visible from Run Baby Run Arena, the 3,200-seat gym where Saint Peter’s laid the groundwork for this year’s stunning success.

That’s the beauty of the NCAA Tournament, the way a school that’s an afterthought when the brackets are announced — think George Mason, Florida Gulf Coast or Oral Roberts — can turn into the darling of the ball. The 15th-seeded Peacocks of Saint Peter’s (22-11) are this year’s Cinderella, and midnight will have to wait after they knocked off No. 2 seed Kentucky and No. 7 seed Murray State.

Daryl Banks III, who scored 27 points in the win over the Wildcats, doesn’t mind the label.

“It’s March Madness. One team throughout the tournament is usually labeled with that,” Banks said. “It’s fun but I think we deserve to be here.”

That might be an understatement, given what the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference champions have done to set up a third-round game against No. 3 seed Purdue (29-7) in Philadelphia.

Talent-rich Kentucky was a threat to win it all, or at least that was considered far more likely than Saint Peter’s beating the Wildcats, then winning again to become the third 15 seed ever to reach the Sweet 16. Even those who bothered to research the Peacocks’ season and history in the Big Dance might have come away underwhelmed.

Saint Peter’s was winless in its three previous trips to the NCAA Tournament, the last in 2011.