Great article by Mark (ArkStFan) on Final 4

[stebo]

I just read ArkStFan's (Mark) article/journal going over his trip to the Final Four this last weekend. Funny stuff and educational as well. Makes me want to go to the event and I am not even a basketball fan:

Here is the article:

Posted by: arkstfan on 04/06/2005 12:59 PM

Updated by: arkstfan on 04/06/2005 01:01 PM

Expires: 01/01/2010 12:00 AM

Back from the Final Four

I had the opportunity to attend the Final Four in St. Louis this weekend. Thought I’d share a few of my thoughts from the experience.

- The festival atmosphere is amazing. The streets were just totally packed around the Edward Jones Dome.

- Spotting who was a fan of each team was generally pretty easy. Orange = Illinois, Green = Michigan State, Baby Blue = North Carolina. Louisville was a bit harder because of their red, black, and white. Very common colors used by people supporting other teams that were just there for the show.

- I’ve heard it said that “great teams” don’t play zone defense. Roy Williams finally has a championship because of the 2-3 zone. Rick Pitino went from playing Illinois close to getting sent home decisively when he switched from zone to man. Illini fans went ape just as soon as Louisville switched because they believed (correctly) that they would chew them up.

- Met Ole Miss coach Rod Barnes at Hoop City. He immediately noticed my Arkansas State shirt and said “Hey Arkansas State”, the Cingular employee said he didn’t know where Arkansas State was, Barnes said “I KNOW”. Laughed and visited with him a bit but didn’t ask for an autograph. I figured with his record against Nutt and Heath, that it wasn’t likely to be a hot commodity any time soon. The free glow lights from Monster.com were more demand.

- Went to the games not rooting for any team. Before Saturday ended I was an Illinois fan. They stuck around to pull for conference mate Michigan State. When MSU did it’s “Go White”, “Go Green” cheer, the Illinois fans handled the “Go Green” part.

- The Illinois fans also seemed to have a great sense of humor. Several had hats with miniature weber grills on top for Coach Weber. A number wore prison style orange jumpsuits. Popular t-shirts among them: “Cooking with Weber”, “House of Paign” with a drawing of Assembly Hall in Champaign-Urbana, and the ever present and wildly popular “We Love Head” for #4 Luther Head.

- North Carolina fans weren’t that big on t-shirts. Only one of note was ROY’S Rules. 1. We play. 2. We win. 3. You go home.

- Answer back cheers are big right now. For Illinois it is “I-L-L” with the answer “I-N-I”. For Michigan State “Go White” “Go Green”. For North Carolina “Tar” “Heels”. Louisville fans just spent the day spelling CARDS over and over and over.

- North Carolina fans had to win the per capita income or appearance of income contest hands down. From clothes, to jewelry, haircuts, it was obvious they were spending it.

- North Carolina also won hands down on the whiney baby fans award. They were mewling over numerous calls that looked pretty good, and looked even better on replay. By the time the first game ended, there was no doubt I was against them.

- Louisville fans were into the game early and got pretty loud. But were so out-matched in numbers by Illinois that they had a hard time. It was pretty close between them and UNC the first night. The UNC fans didn’t really start making noise until the team was on a big run. Michigan State didn’t make much noise at all until the Illini fans started helping them out.

- The kings of the high fives were the North Carolina fans, no contest. About the only thing they didn’t high five was buying a Coke from the vendors.

- Another North Carolina victory was best looking female fans. Narrow win over Louisville, the Cards have some real uggos that pulled down their final score. Tons of the UNC females were wearing either white jersey with baby blue t-shirt under it or the blue jersey with offsetting white t-shirt under it.

- The welcome to the Big City award goes to Louisville. I’m not sure I got on the metro once without some Card fan realizing they were on the wrong train. Big hint. If you are staying IN St. Louis, get on the train in St. Louis, and suddenly find yourself crossing the Mississippi River into Illinois… you are on the wrong train, no need to ask everyone around you if you are on the wrong train.

- ASU’s Red would mop the floor with the effeminate UNC mascot and wouldn’t get much challenge from Michigan State’s or Louisville’s. Too bad he wasn’t there with the team to strut his stuff.

- Illinois had by far the most entertaining students. When the team does its huddle for player introductions they sway when the team sways. When the team jumps up and down they jump and down. If any of them didn’t have on orange I didn’t see them.

- The entire downtown experience was much like an episode of The Apprentice with teams of young people doing marketing surveys and handing out products every where you turn. Apparently there is good money in online betting because two different online casinos had tons of HOT young women working for them.

- The near miss at murder victim award goes to the woman at one of the shops selling Final Four merchandise that was in line in front of me. She had a 5 minute conversation with one of the clerks repeatedly saying she wanted THAT style of shirt in youth medium. He then would answer they were sold out and had only youth large and extra large left. She would then say “Do you have it in youth medium?” Clerk would say “No, ma’am only large and extra large”. “But I need it in medium”. “We don’t have it.” “Will you be getting any more?” (this is a few hours before the game starts). “No. What we have is it”. “Well I need it in medium”. “We don’t have any more.” “The large is too big for my son”. “We do have other styles.” “Well I like this one. I’d like to get it in medium” And on and on it went. Lucky for her the shop was run by a Christian outreach group and I was too amazed by her stupidity and too tired from walking to pick her up and throw her out of line.

- Before games and during timeouts they run the champions of the various sports on video boards. I learned that Minnesota-Duluth won at least three straight women’s hockey titles and Minnesota won the next two. Got to see Denver listed numerous times as they kept repeating the men’s hockey championship and skiing.

- A great photo of the Denver hockey team with the championship trophy was used to promote attendance at the upcoming Frozen Four championship.

- Near the stadium we saw a guy in green spandex with a white S on the front and wearing shorts come riding through on a bicycle carrying a Michigan State flag. As he came by my thought was where did he get that hairy suit, then I realized it wasn’t a suit, he was painted green. Ugh.

- Speaking of flags, despite 47,000 people in attendance and nearly that many outside, I never once saw the state flags of Illinois, North Carolina, Michigan, or Kentucky being used to promote a team in the Final Four.

- The hardest part of getting out of Edward Jones Stadium after the first night was getting past all the folks looking for tickets for the title game.

- The Final Four is an awesome experience. If you can get tickets GO. If you get tickets and can’t go… CALL ME.

[CMJ]

I've always wanted to goto t he Final Four. Would rather make that than any other sporting event(with the exception of the Olympic games). Great writeup. What's interesting. is I've heard that UNC fans are real wine and cheese..and ArkStfan sure seemed to agree. Guess it might not be a stereotype.

[NTEagle08]

I know it may seem like a long time from now, but the Final Four is returning to Texas in 2011 to be played in Houston at Reliant Stadium.

[Arkstfan]

Like I said I went in pretty neutral. I was leaning a little toward Illinois and my son toward Louisville in the first game but it wasn't like we cared. Second game I was leaning slightly toward UNC but their fans were such babies I couldn't take it. By the time we left Saturday we were trying to make up our minds whether we for Illinois or for not North Carolina.