In the euphoric moments after Kentucky’s amazing victory over the 35-0 Shockers of Wichita State, I started texting with some friends about getting tickets for the sweet sixteen in Indianapolis. I must’ve refreshed stubhub.com and guyonthecornertickets.com about a thousand times that Sunday evening looking for tickets. By Monday night, we had secured 4 seats in section 434 for $175 each. Not the greatest seats in the world, but not terrible either, and way cheaper than what was being offered on those web sites.
We headed out friday afternoon, anxious and excited to watch UK vs UofL in the Sweet Sixteen. We made it to Indy by 3:30pm and grabbed a burger at a place called Bru Burger Bar. It was a little pricey, but very good, and our waitress told us that they had just opened up a Lexington location and that a Louisville location is set to open early in 2015. After eating we made our way to Lucas Oil Stadium and loitered in the Colts gift shop until they opened the gates and let us inside. This was my first trip to Lucas Oil Stadium, and boy is it nice. I mean REALLY nice. Leather seats in the concourse. Granite counter tops in the bathrooms. Everything about the place was just really well done. With an hour and a half before the first game, we grabbed some leather chairs around a coffee table, and relaxed for awhile. A few of us tried to sleep a bit, knowing it was going to be a long night.
As the Michigan vs Tennessee game tipped off, we arrived at section 434 which provided the perfect perch for our reconnaissance mission to scope out the lower sections of the arena. We spent most of that game eyeballing the various lower sections of the Stadium, noting which sections were full of UT and/or Michigan fans, and watching the yellow jacketed “Event Staff” to see who was really working and, more importantly, who wasn’t. It helped to keep our nerves at bay, although Taylor had to step out into the concourse and walk his nerves off a bit. At the under 8:00 timeout we went down to the concourse outside of the UT section (it appeared UT was going to lose) only to find about 500 people who all had the same plan. With a mere 30 seconds left in the game, we made the decision to go to the other side of the stadium and try our luck in the Michigan section, hoping there would be less people there.
The view from our seats in section 434
The Michigan section was on the floor of the stadium, and to get to it you had to walk down to the front of the sideline seats and get through about 10 high level security personnel. No yellow “Event Staff” jackets here, we were now in high level, red sport coat territory. We loitered at the top of the ramp and waited for our opportunity. When the game ended, my friend Jeff disappeared down the ramp into the sea of people heading out to the concourse. Five minutes later, I got a text from Jeff. “Score!” is all it said. He met us back at the main concourse with 4 ticket stubs for floor seats that he got from a Michigan fan who was leaving. Jackpot! We headed down and into the floor seats. Why yes Mr. red sport coat security person, I CAN show you my ticket stub. Surrounded by elated Michigan fans, I sort of stood awestruck for a few minutes, still not believing I was this close to the floor.
Me and Garrett on the floor
We scoped out a row with about 8 empty seats about 10 rows from the floor and claimed them. If someone came to claim the seats we were in, there were more on either side. From our up close perspective, we watched the team warm up while still trying to come to grips with just how close we were. During the first few minutes of the game, the crowd was absolutely nuts. And it was all happening RIGHT in front of us. We were literally looking UP at the basket. Each time one team did something (anything), the crowd just exploded, and being down so low made it even louder. Some of the Michigan fans sitting around us weren’t even watching the game. They were just looking around at the stadium with a stare that seemed to say, “holy cow, I’ve never seen anything like this at a basketball game. These people are insane”. It was a nerve wracking game. UK fell behind early, and trailed most of the game, leaving us very anxious as the 2nd half wore on.
But down the stretch, the cats were the more poised team who made all the plays and won the game. At one point, Jeff got so excited that he jumped up in the air and came down with his knee on the back of the seat in front of us. It was bleeding pretty good and for a moment he wasn’t sure he’d be able to walk to the car. In the last minute, every time there was a stop in play my knees would go weak, and I’d have to sit down for fear of fainting. When Aaron Harrison made the free throw to put the cats up by 4 with 2 seconds left, we all just went completely crazy. Screaming, hugging, punching, high fives … pure pandemonium. The cats had prevailed, and were on their way to the Elite 8 and a date with Michigan.
Our view as UK and UofL tipped off in the Sweet Sixteen
We stood in disbelief for a few minutes, and then made our way down toward the floor. We were standing behind the UofL bench when someone said, “hey, there’s Mark Stoops”. Stoops was over behind the UK bench, so we worked our way over there. When I arrived, there was a row of chairs between me and Coach, so I hopped over one of the seats, and bumped into a large black dude, who turned and gave me a stare down. I looked back with a “please don’t hurt me” look in my eyes and then just turned and went over to meet the coach. Stoops was there with Coach Marrow and was talking to some other guy. While waiting paitently, I noticed KSR’s Drew Franklin sitting there on press row. I hollered at him, he turned, and I said, “hash tag, Eat It Drew”, referring back to a KSR show a few weeks ago. When Coach Stoops finished talking, I asked for a photo. He obliged and I asked how practice went (they had the first spring practice that morning) and told him we’d see him on April 26th (the spring football game. Already have my tickets). As we walked away, Jeff said to me, “man, do you realize that you about knocked over World Wide Wes hopping over that chair?”. Apparently WWW was the dude I crashed into trying to get to Stoops. As we walked across the floor toward the exit, we ran into Dr. Eli Capiluto, the UK president, and congratulated him on the victory.
Me and Jeff with UK football coach Mark Stoops
After that, we spilled out of the stadium onto the streets of Indianapolis. Card fans were stumbling around crying, while cats fans were ready to celebrate. We had a 2 hour drive in front of us, so we made our way straight to the car and headed for home. On the way, we listened to the KSR post game show on the radio and of course everyone was excited. During the show Matt said, “at one point after the game, someone came up to Drew and yelled, ‘hash tag eat it Drew’ which was great”. That was my 2nd ever mention on KSR, so I’ve got that going for me. We finally made it home at 3:30am and I fell asleep with a huge grin on my face, reliving that Aaron Harrison 3 pointer from the corner over and over again. Cats Win!
Look ma, I’m on TV!