Oh damn, just remembered DPM was at that game! What a thrill that must have been!
HOLY CRAP! Best game I've ever been to. The upset was one thing, but the whole game was phenomenal. Norfolk matched Mizzou athlete for athlete and had a legit post presence that the Tiggers had no answer for.
It was really a fun day. The Florida/UVA was a clunker, sorry. UVA just wasn't good, but that game was being played at the same time as the Creighton game, which was coming down to the wire. All the TV's in the concourses were on that game and there were huge groups of people huddled around all of them completely packing the concourse. You could get food or use the restroom very quickly, but if you wanted to walk around, it was tough. There were constant cheers and groans as the game went back and forth and if you were watching the Fla/UVA game, they came at completely random times. As Creighton won, a huge cheer erupted and shortly there after, thousands of fans came streaming back into the arena to watch the end of the game. It was really a surreal atmosphere.
As the Norfolk/Mizzou game unfolded and Norfolk got off to a fast start and got up early and the fans got behind them pretty quickly as this was still a novelty, the pesky 15 is poking the big, bad 2 seed. The make-up of the arena was interesting at this point. There were about 5,000 Mizzou fans, a decent number of KU fans (who hate Mizzou), a few hundred Florida fans (who didn't want to play Mizzou) and most of the rest were Husker football fans (who still have a distaste for Mizzou from the Big 12) and Creighton fans (most of which double as Husker football fans in the fall), so the entire arena outside of the Mizzou fans in attendance were pulling hard for Mizzou. Then they tied it a the half and people realized that this could really happen. Then they kept answering every Mizzou jab and started throwing a couple of their own. The place was going crazy as the game to an end and it's final conclusion. Mizzou fans were depressed and silent. They disappeared quickly when the game ended, strangely enough. A kid was sobbing as he was leaving the arena next to us. His dad was embarrassed his kid was sobbing. I felt bad for the kid for a minute until I remembered he was a Mizzou fan and was destined to trailer parks and disappointment.
The Purdue/St. Mary's game had no chance to live up to the previous game and it didn't. The arena basically empty when that game tipped. We had to clear the arena between games and they had only opened the gates for the second session about 10 minutes before the game started, so it was basically dead. Purdue controlled most of the game until a late charge from St. Mary's. Tied it up with about a minute left and then got the ball back with about 40 seconds left and traveled on the in bounds pass which was a dead ball inbound so he couldn't run the base line. Felt really bad for the kid, he took the loss really hard. But we got a great finish out of that game and that's all I wanted.
Kansas basically pistol whipped Detroit. The only thing entertaing about that game were a series of dunks by both Detroit and Kansas. Kansas had this one that was a thing of beauty and power but was called off because the passer was called for an offensive foul. It was sick though. Detroit had 3 or 4 nice dunks but they couldn't hit a shot that was further away than 6 inches from the rim. Never in the game. We left early. We were tired. It was a fun day though. A bucket list sort of day.
