I know I said in last year's Final Four blog post that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see my Badgers in the Final Four, but little did I know that, dare I say, this year's Badgers team was better than last?? Heck yes, I dare! Right away when the college basketball season started and the Badgers mopped up each of their opponents in the Bahama's Invitational, I knew it was going to be a special season. With Kaminsky and Dekker at the helm, Hayes improving in all facets in the off-season, and Koenig stepping up big when Traevon Jackson went down with a broken foot in December, the Badgers were destined for something big! So, literally a half hour after they won the Big 10 title game in an overtime thriller, the Badgers were selected as the #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, with a regular season record of 33-3, a school record!! What a great day that was! After the rest of the brackets were announced, I knew the Badgers had the toughest road to pave if they wanted to get to the Final Four again this year. The Badgers had their easiest game of the whole tournament when they played the 16 seeded Coastal Carolina. We breezed by them, and our next opponent was the Oregon Ducks in the Round of 32, just like last year. The first half of that game was a little rough, but the Badgers came out with guns blazing in the second half, and beat the Ducks 72-65. The next game was vs. the North Carolina Tarheels in the Sweet Sixteen. In this game, 3rd string bench player Zak Showalter (behind the injured Jackson and Koenig) came up big with a key steal and a few points down the stretch. The Badgers beat the Tarheels 79-72! The next game was against the Arizona Wildcats in the Elite Eight, just like in last year's Elite Eight battle. The Badgers were losing by 3 at the half in this game, but in the second half, Dekker hit an off-balance, cold-blooded 3-pointer to put the Wildcats away for good!! That's right, the Badgers were onto the Final Four for the second straight year! Robbie and I were jumping up and down and shouting from the rooftops! There was no question where we were headed for the Final Four and Championship games! Indianapolis or bust!!!
The day after we found out the Badgers were headed to Indy, we reserved out flights, hotels, and our car rental. All the flights into Indy were either sold or $500+ one-way, per person, so, we started looking at other city's near Indy. We narrowed down our search to Chicago and Detroit. Chicago was a little bit cheaper, so we decided on the Windy City. The weekend of the Final Four was also opening weekend of baseball, and we saw that the Cubs were hosting the Cardinals in Chicago on the very first night of the season, and for anyone who has read at least one of my blog posts, you know that we just had to go. But more on that later. After reserving the flights, we confirmed our hotels and rental car. We learned from last year to hold off on purchasing the Final Four tickets, as prices were bound to drop. Everything else was set!
Our flight was due out of Vegas on Friday evening at 6pm, and we had a connecting flight in Phoenix. Our first plan was to take a non-stop 2:15pm flight, but that plane only had 1 seat left. :( At around 2pm that afternoon, we got a notification that our flight from Vegas to Phoenix was delayed, and we would ultimately mis-connect through Phoenix. Being I was still working, Robbie got right on the phone with our airline to see what our alternative options would be. The agent was extremely rude to us, barely giving us other options, basically just telling us to go to the airport and cross our fingers that we get re-routed. I got off work at 3pm, and we were literally out the door right away, making a beeline to the airport to see if they could fix our problem. Being we got to the airport early, we were able to get on an earlier flight into Phoenix. The ticket agent did tell us that our luggage may not make it to Chicago on time, as we were a late arrival to get on that flight. That was the least of our worries. This earlier flight, however, meant running through the airport so we could arrive at our gate in time! Whew! We were on the plane! But, our troubles didn't end there! In Phoenix, as we were literally next in line to give our boarding passes to the ticket-taker, the gate agent called our names over the loud speaker. When we got to her desk, she advised us that we weren't checked in for our flight into Chicago!! I remembered that I specifically asked the agent in Vegas if we were checked in all the way to Chicago, and she said that we would be fine. I asked because I knew that this problem would arise due to the last-minute change in flights. I deal with this stuff every single day in my job as a travel agent! After the rude (yes, again) agent told us, and I quote "you absolutely were not checked into this flight, no matter what you were told," we were both given a seats towards the back and not together, were in a horrible mood, but who wouldn't be?? If I treated my customers like that, I would be fired, no question about it! One good thing to come from these flights was seeing the Grand Canyon and a beautiful sunset in Phoenix! After all was said and done, I needed a drink!
Despite our issues with the flights, we made it into Chicago at the time we were originally scheduled to get in, and our luggage even made it onto the carousel! That was the best sight I had all day! After our luggage came out, I declared that our luck would turn around from this point until the end of our trip. And sure enough, our hotel shuttle was at the airport to pick us up not long after we called, hotel check in took only 2 minutes, and before we knew it, we were in our room. It was at that time that we finally purchased our Final Four ticket package, and we saved over $400 by holding off from when the tickets first went on sale! Score! Shortly after, we wound down and tried to get as much sleep as possible because tomorrow would be a big day!
We woke up on Saturday morning full of anticipation, and dressed in our Badger Red!! We took the shuttle back to the airport, and then picked up our car rental for the weekend! It wasn't long after that we were on our way to Indy!!! Our road to the Final Four was right in front of us! The drive from Chicago to Indy didn't seem like that long because we broke up the drive by staying in Lafayette the 2 nights of the games. So, on our way to Indy on Saturday, we stopped in Lafayette to check into our hotel. After that, the drive only took a little under an hour!
With one quick call to the Final Four Fan Hotline, we were told of a parking garage with easy in and out access to the I-65, which was our road to the Final Four. I must say, the city of Indianapolis is beautiful! We had a little bit of time to see a few hotspots before we made our way to Lucas Oil Stadium. Our first stop was to see the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Monument Circle. In front of it was a huge replica of the NCAA trophy, and big Final Four block lettering! The area around this monument was really crowded, so we decided to continue making our way to the stadium. A few blocks down, Robbie pointed out to me where the Indiana Pacers play basketball. Their arena was kind of hidden, but I did see the end of it. Maybe we will go if Sam Dekker or Frank Kaminsky ever play there! Once we got closer to Lucas Oil Stadium, the volume of tailgaters intensified, and rightfully so! It was fun walking down the streets and high-fiving random Badger fans! The energy was just amazing!! We then made our way to pick up our Final Four tickets, and it became official, we were going to back-to-back Final Fours, right alongside the Badgers! How cool is that?!
The Badgers played the second game of the Final Four as it was clearly the marquee matchup of the night. The first game was the Duke Blue Devils vs. the Michigan State Spartans. Before the game started, the National Anthem was sung, and it was sung by a delegate from each school that was in the Final Four. Wisconsin's delegate was Vitto Brown, who actually does sing in a group with his family, and he is also part of the Badgers basketball team! Pretty neat! Robbie and I both knew this game would be a blowout, and we both were right. MSU kept it close in the first 10 minutes, but then Duke pulled away the rest of the game, and eventually won 81-61. I felt like I was watching a #1 vs. #16 seed. With this game being such a blowout, it gave me time to get Final Four merchandise and get replenished for the Badger game that was quickly approaching!
When the stadium got full, the color in the seats was predominantly Kentucky Blue, with one section in Badger Red, the Wisconsin student section decked out in red, and a few red shirts scattered around the rest of the arena. Kentucky's campus is about 3.5 hours from Indy, so it was basically a home game for the Cats.That's not to say that the Badger fans would allow the Cats fans to drown us out! We were lucky enough to be sitting next to a few of those red shirts, but our section was mostly Cat fans! The lineups were announced, and it was game time!
Kentucky got off to a quick start with Andrew Harrison sinking a 3-pointer right off the bat. Their fans exploded. Wisconsin committed a turnover on the very next possession, creating an easy lay-up on the other side. The Badgers got their first points on two Nigel Hayes free throws. After a miss on the other end, Dekker threw down a sweet 3-pointer to tie the game! After that, the lead changed hands several times, and the Badgers stuck with Kentucky really well. Our largest lead in the game was 23-14, missing Kentucky's biggest deficit by 1 point the whole season!! To say I was ecstatic at this moment is an understatement. It brought such joy to see Kentucky, players and fans alike, panicking! The Wildcats closed the gap, and eventually tied the game at 34 going into the half.
By the time we left Lucas Oil Stadium, the big crowds had thinned out, and we had no problem getting back to our car, and before we knew it, we were on our way back to Lafayette. As I drove back to our hotel, Robbie was on Twitter, reading me tweets about our victory! One of last year's graduating seniors who played for the Badgers, Ben Brust (who is now playing basketball overseas) took to Twitter a week before the game and he tweeted that the Wildcats were going to be done after this game, and to 'book it!' It was fun reading the tweets related to that after the Badgers won! When we got back to our hotel, we turned on ESPN to watch hilights, postgame reaction, and press conferences from both teams! I was too excited to fall asleep despite the fact that is was 2am!
The next day, Sunday, we were able to sleep in for as long as we could. The first thing I did when I woke up was turn on ESPN. They were broadcasting live from just outside Lucas Oil Stadium, and behind the analysts was the Badger Band, cheerleaders, and a handful on fans, living it up after last night's win. It was hard to come off that "high," that's for sure!
After we checked out of Lafayette, we were headed back to Chicago for the night. This day was another momentous occasion: Opening Night of Baseball, and we were going!!! We got to our hotel and relaxed for a few hours, and re-watched the Final Four game from the night before. It was fun to watch, and we gained a different perspective from the play-by-play announcers.
Our pre-baseball game meal was none other than Giordano's! We make it a point to dine there each time we are in Chicago! The pizza hit the spot, and soon enough we were on our way to Wrigley! Our original plan was to take the El from the airport to Wrigley, but we mis-timed our stay at Giordano's. We ended up driving to Wrigleyville, and parked in a make-shift parking lot that ordinarily runs as a gas station. It brought back memories of my very first time at Wrigley when I was around 9 years old. I went to the game with my mom and brother, and we parked in a carwash, and we were boxed in until the cars around us left! Good times. Anyway, the lot that we parked in was about a mile away from the stadium and it was getting close to game time! And by golly, I was not going to miss the VERY FIRST pitch of the 2015 season! We quickly found out that we could take pedicab rides from our lot to Wrigley, so we did! What a cool experience that was!
After the pedicab let us off, we snapped a picture, and entered the ballpark. As I was going through the turnstiles, I felt like I was in the movie Rookie of the Year. The opening scene of that movie shows fans going through those same Wrigley turnstiles on opening day, and the energy around Wrigley was like life imitating art! Perfect!
We made it to our seats as they were announcing the lineups! The Cubs were hosting the Cardinals, and we were definitely Cubs fans this night!
Wrigley Field is going through renovations that will last until the 2018 season; new to the park this year was a big jumbotron out in left center! What a huge improvement that was! Being they are renovating, the outfield bleachers were out of commission. It was very odd to see emptiness looking out over the field. One kink that Wrigley hadn't worked out yet through their off-season renovations was the bathroom situation. There were several facilities that were malfunctioning, leaving around half the bathrooms out of order. Unacceptable, Wrigley!
Monday was the big day, the day of the Championship game! To be completely honest, I was not a ball of nerves like I was on Saturday. I even surprised myself at how calm I was. You know, it was only the biggest game of my life as a Badger fan....no big deal! We drove back to Lafayette to check into our hotel, and soon enough we were back on the road to Indy! We left with a bunch of time to spare before the game. We wanted to take as much of this experience in as we could. Who knows when the opportunity will present itself again.
When we arrived downtown, we headed towards the energy! Throughout the weekend, we found out where the Badgers team was staying, and we wanted to go check it out. When the team arrived back at their hotel after the game on Saturday, the lobby was full, and I mean packed, with Badger fans wanting to congratulate their team on the Kentucky upset. So, on Sunday, we wanted to pop in to snap a few pictures of where that celebration happened. While we were in the lobby, we ran into this really nice couple who told us that the team was close to coming down and getting onto the bus, and that they would be filing out right in front of us. So, we decided to wait along with them. As we were waiting, we saw a few glimpses of Barry Alvarez, the Badgers Athletic Director and former football coach!! He was close enough to touch! The team's appearance took longer than expected, and after nearly 2 hours of standing there, they started filing down! It was definitely worth the wait! First came head coach extrordinnaire, Bo Ryan! I have idolized Bo Ryan for what he has done with the Badger organization, and he is one of the celebrities that I would like to meet one day. I have soooo many questions! Next came Nigel Hayes, followed by Duje Dukkan, Bronson Koenig, Sam Dekker, Frank Kaminsky, Zak Showalter, and Josh Gasser! If I wasn't in my right mind, I wouldv'e thought it was a dream! There they were, the starting lineup for the Badgers, just walking RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME before the biggest game of their lives!! Holy Smokes!! I felt kind of awesome! A big thank you to that super great couple who let us hang out with them in the meantime! Hands down, one of the coolest experiences in my sports life!
After we left the hotel, we still had some time to kill before the game, so we grabbed some food at Champps Bar and Grill. Champps holds a special place in my heart, as that restaurant was the go-to spot for my dad in Minnesota. I can't tell you the number of times I went there with him as a kid, and met him there for many dinners as an adult! Plus, we just had to eat at a place with that name before the "Champp"ionship game!! :)
After tip, the game started much like the Kentucky game. Duke made the first shot, then we responded, and it went back and forth like that for a while. In the first half, we fell behind, but managed to tie the game at 31 by halftime! Needless to say, it was another nailbiter!
Our halftime entertainment was an artist who made Coach K and Bo Ryan's face out of chalk. I've seen that type of artistry before, and it always amazes me!
About midway through the second half, the Badgers took a 9 point lead over the Blue Devils! I remember excitedly telling Robbie that I can't believe this is how the Championship game was panning out, and how grateful I was to be seeing it! For anyone who has watched the Badgers regularly this season, they will know that they have had a tough time with just burying a team when they have a lead like that. And this game was no different. We lost that 9 point lead with 7 minutes to go in the game, and we couldn't find the strength, speed or defense to come back after that. We slowly saw our chances of hoisting that trophy fading away. Reality started sinking in with about 2 minutes left, and when the buzzer went off, I lost it again. I lost it for the same reasons I cried on Saturday, but more-so the thought of this team being the most talented one I've seen grace the court, and knowing that team would be no more. Kaminsky is a senior, and Dekker ultimately decided to forego his senior year and enter into the NBA draft. For me, just being in the Championship game was enough, however! While my head was down in my hands, a really nice MSU fan came over to me and gave me her Badgers earrings. She said she was doing all she could to cheer on Wisconsin, and that she wont be needing the earrings anymore. How sweet!
This year's team has been something special for sure, and I felt, in a very strange way, that I was somehow closer to it, rather than just watching games on TV. I felt like the team was a part of me. It was a bittersweet ending, and it was hard to shake that loss. We were so close! But, I went forward with my head held high, feeling thankful to the Badgers for giving me something fun to cheer for for 5 months! We left the stadium fairly quickly after the game. We definitely did not want to see Duke celebrate when they had the easiest road in the tournament to become champions! Part of me found it very unfair. If Duke was in our region, there was a very slim chance they would have made it past Arizona, and if they did, then Kentucky would have just mopped the floor with them in the Final Four. I chose to look past that because it is what it is. We can't go back and change the brackets, or change the matchups. Even if we somehow could, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. In order to be the best, you have to beat the best. And I felt like we did that on Saturday. Part of me felt like Saturday was our Championship game.
On our way back to Lafayette, we were driving alongside every other Badger fan who probably needed to get back to Wisconsin that night, so it took us nearly double the time to get back. About halfway through our drive, it started raining, which kind of fit the mood.
Tuesday we woke up after sleeping off the loss, and this was the day we were headed home. We stayed pretty close to Purdue's campus, so we drove there to see their basketball arena. We had a little more time to kill, so we went to B-Dub's, and also got our haircut. We both needed a trim, and I decided to go a little further, and get 7 inches chopped off! Before the cut, my hair came down to the bottom of my ribs, and now it's just past my shoulders! It'll be nice once the heat of Vegas comes around!
We were flying back to Vegas from Chicago again, so as we were driving north, we stopped in Gary, Indiana to see the birthplace and childhood home of Michael Jackson. Robbie has been a huge fan of his since he was little, and that fanhood has rubbed off on me a bit, too! It was really cool to get a glimpse into he and his family's past. It was so surprising to me to see that such a tiny house held 11 people! In front of the house was an MJ Memorial headstone, as a nice tribute!
Our drive back to the airport was with mixed emotions. I did not want this weekend to end, and I did not want the Badgers season to end. I want to see Kaminsky and Dekker play together again, and I want another shot at Duke for goodness sake! When it was time to board our plane, the gate agent asked for 2 volunteers to take a later flight due to overbooking. Robbie and I jumped at the chance, because it came with compensation of our original fare, plus $100! Sign us up! Our new departure time was only an hour later, which gave me the opportunity to get a happy meal at McDonalds, and eat the tiniest size of fries that I have ever seen! It's like they were made for me!
This weekend was all that I thought it would be, and more! It was filled with basketball, and a little baseball thrown in there as well! I will never forget this epic weekend and all the memories that went with it!
"If you take our guys, they're here, they bought in, they are so committed, the difference between involved and committed. You sit down to the breakfast with bacon and eggs. You look at the eggs, you know the chicken was involved. You look at the bacon, and you know the pig was committed." - Bo Ryan
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