It’s a late-game tradition with IU basketball that goes back to the early Bob Knight days and it comes with a bevy of cheerleaders on the court and IU flags everywhere and a real sense of roundball pomp and circumstance.
TV analyst Billy Packer once called it “the greatest time out in college basketball.”
Tuesday night it became more of a spectacle when, 15 rows up from the court, a Wyoming fan wearing a ten-gallon hat, vest and big rodeo style belt buckle stepped out into the aisle by his seat and began to dance.
As the timeout was winding down and music was wrapping up, he turned his hands into two imaginary six shooters and gave a Yosemite Sam “Pow!...Pow!” finish to his performance.
That’s what mid-March is supposed to be like at UD Arena.
In the game before the Hoosiers topped Wyoming, 66-58, Texas Southern and Texas A&M Corpus Christi were locked in a back-and-forth battle that saw lots of steals, blocked shots and lead changes.
But no sequence of events was more dramatic than when Corpus Christi’s Jalen Jackson stole the ball from TSU and went racing to the other end of the court for what looked like a sure break-away score.
He turned once, just to make sure no one was on his tail, and then he launched himself at the rim for what everyone in the Arena thought would be an easy two points.
But then out of nowhere came TSU’s A.J. Lawson – flying through the air like some Superman in sneakers – and he blocked Jackson’s shot with authority from behind.
The suddenness, the finality, the stirring show of competiveness made the whole crowd gasp:
“Oooooh!”
The fans knew they’d just gotten a high-flying treat and that moment was what March is supposed to be like in the NCAA Tournament.
For the first time in two years since 2019, the pageantry, the flair and the high-decibel atmosphere have all returned to college basketball.
The COVID pandemic cancelled the entire NCAA Tournament, beginning with the First Four here in Dayton, in 2020.
Last year the plug was pulled on the First Four here again, this time because the NCAA decided to run the entire tournament in something of protective bubble in and around Indianapolis.
Only a restricted number of fans – just family members and some school personnel – were allowed to attend games and they sat far from the court.
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
There were no cheerleaders, mascots, bands or sold-out arena like Tuesday night.
While the games went on, the sterility and silence stole from the experience.
When the loudest sound in the gym at an NCAA Tournament is the squeak of sneakers on a hardwood floor, it seems more like a basketball practice than a prime-time stage.
Texas Southern played in the NCAA Tournament bubble last year and Tuesday night they topped Corpus Christi, 76-67.
John Walker III, the Tigers 6-foot-9 redshirt senior forward who tallied 16 points against the Islanders, said he loved the atmosphere in Dayton:
“It was electrifying.
“Last year was an amazing experience, of course, but this year even more so with the people, the crowd, the interactions.
“It’s the kind of stuff we missed last year.
“This year made you feel like its’s the biggest sports show on earth.”
Bryson Etienne, who led the Tigers with 21 points, agreed with his teammate:
“Now since everybody’s in the gym, you’ve got the cheerleaders and the bands. It’s an experience we’ve all dreamt of.”
Wright State Athletics Director Bob Grant summed it up best:
“This is just a super uplifting return to normalcy.”
And yet it’s anything but normal for Wright State this year.
The Raiders made the tournament for just the fourth time since they became a Division I program 35 years ago.
Wednesday night they played Bryant University out of Rhode Island in a nationally-televised First Four matchup before another sold-out crowd at UD Arena.
“This is the biggest game in Wright State history,” Grant said before the tipoff. “I’m talking in regard to exposure and potential exposure. We have a captive audience and it’s in or own backyard.
“We’ve got the best of both worlds. The other schools in the First Four can say they have a captive audience, too, but the monstrous bonus for us is that we have that and we have Dayton, too!”
“And if you’re fortunate enough to win here, you go to play a top-four team, a blueblood, in prime time.
“That’s pretty heady stuff. The kind of stuff a mid-major athletics director and a mid-major university find pretty rare.
“If you were going to script something that was going to be helpful to your university and give you a platform and add a breath of extra life and momentum into you, this is what you’d draw up. This is really, really a special moment for Wright State University.”
Some other First Four participants felt the same way about their school’s involvement.
Indiana University – with Mike Woodson now at the helm of the hoops program – was back in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in six years
“Coach Woodson, to me, has just brought the light,” said Trace Jackson-Davis. “I feel like Indiana basketball has been in the darkness so long now.”
The 6-foot-9 junior forward led IU with 29 points and was overjoyed afterward:
“It was honestly surreal. I’ve always dreamed about playing in the tournament.”
And when you think of the tournament, you certainly think of UD Arena. More NCAA Tournament games have been played here than in any arena in America.
With Wednesday night’s two matchups – WSU versus Bryant and then Notre Dame against Rutgers – it has hosted 129 tournament games.
“This is what we’re built for, it’s part of our DNA,” said University of Dayton Athletics Director Neil Sullivan. “Basketball is this arena and it wasn’t right when the tournament a here. It impacts a lot of people. And not just from the basketball standpoint, but in the community. too.
“There’s a vibe that comes with this. You can feel it when you’re walking down Brown Street or in parts of downtown. There are the hotels and all the other establishments, it’s all part of it.”
No one appreciates this more than Grant this year who, by the way, said the UD folks have been ‘terrific” hosts to their crosstown counterparts.
“We’ve seen the tournament and heard about it and been part of some planning for it, but to actually be playing in it gives me a real appreciation for the amount of hard work the people from the University of Dayton are doing and all the (Big) Hoopla folks, too.
“There’s a reason this is the basketball mecca and the First Four is here.”
And the past two nights, the arena was a place of pilgrimage for a tournament returning to what it’s supposed to be.
“The sport of basketball is made to be played in front of fans,” said Sullivan. “That’s part of the game – the fans, the bands, the cheerleaders. It clearly was not the same last year without all of them. It was a really challenging environment. This is what it’s supposed to be.”
And that meant Tuesday night, the Hoosiers came out of the players’ tunnel in their trademark candy stripe warm-up pants as the huge IU contingent that filled the Arena to the rafters erupted in cheers.
Yet nothing was more colorful than the Wyoming Cowboys mascot with is big hat, that thick black moustache and his swagger.
TSU’s muscled up tiger in his maroon jersey was just as animated. And the school’s pep band – all brass and percussion – rocked the Arena. Across the court, their Corpus Christi counterparts added some fun with their green and blue wigs while Islanders’ cheerleaders shimmied on the court in glittery silver dresses while waving glittery blue pompoms.
Yet nothing stuck with you more than some of the poignant moments that happened on the court.
When the first game ended and the TSU players began to celebrate, Corpus Christi’s sharp-shooting guard Trevian Tennyson – who led the team with 18 points – walked off the court in tears.
Afterward, Islanders coach Steve Lutz tried to add some perspective:
“I told them this in the locker room. They’ll look back on this when they’re old and fat like me and bald and they’re going to be like, ‘Hey man, this was one of the best years of my life!’’'
And that, too, is what mid-March is supposed to be like at UD Arena.
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