At approximately 5:03 Central time, Greg Gumbel of CBS Sports said the magic word that many Wildcat fans had been waiting to hear their entire lives. “Northwestern.”
Welsh-Ryan Arena erupted via satellite. And for the first time in school history, the Wildcats were invited to play in the NCAA tournament.
The Wildcats are in the West region, which was the last bracket revealed on the NCAA Tournament Selection Show, so the thousands of fans that packed the bleachers at Welsh-Ryan Arena got a little antsy. But when you’ve waited 78 years, what’s a few more minutes?
Northwestern, a No. 8 seed, will play No. 9 Vanderbilt in Salt Lake City in the Round of 64 on Thursday in Salt Lake City. If the Wildcats win, they will advance to play No. 1 Gonzaga in the second round.
Northwestern is the biggest story of this 2017 tournament, the media darling and biggest Cinderella story in the field as the last major-conference program in the country to make the Big Dance.
The Wildcats have carried the NCAA tournament monkey on their backs since 1939, the year the first tournament was held with an eight-team field. Northwestern, which finished 7-13, didn’t hear its name that year, or in any of the 77 tournaments since, even as the field expanded to 16, 22, 25, 32, 40, 48, 52, 53, 64, 65 and 68 teams.
Yet no matter how big the field got, it still wasn’t big enough for the Wildcats, who managed to win more than half of their conference games just eight times in 77 years.
But this year was different. The Wildcats set a school record with 23 wins. They produced a winning record in Big Ten play (10-8) for the first time since 1967-68. They created the greatest moment in the program’s history with a buzzer-beating win over Michigan on March 1 to all but clinch their invitation. Then, this week, they won two games to reach the semifinals of the Big Ten tournament for the first time, too.
Today, though, the Wildcats found out just how different they were when the saw the name “NORTHWESTERN” appear on the bracket for the first time ever.
Northwestern may get back to the Big Dance more times in the coming years. But, like anything else in life, you never forget your first time.
The Wildcats are dancing.
