Weekend Recap from Sean Burke (VU 2021)
Thursday:
Hi, my name is Sean Burke and I was lucky enough to be this year’s VUSports Student Essay Challenge winner. I am a senior set to graduate in May and was excited to see Villanova play in the tournament for the first time. My roommate and I hit the road bright and early at 5 am for the 10-hour drive from Villanova to Indianapolis. We ended up stopping in Columbus to see the Ohio State campus and after passing about 20 March Madness signs, wound up getting to Indy around 3. Literally the first thing we saw driving into Indianapolis was Gonzaga’s coach Mark Few walking across the street from the hotel to the convention center for practice – this made us realize that this trip was actually happening and March Madness was definitely here. It was incredibly interesting to see March Madness all in one location – the whole city had march madness signage everywhere – including the massive bracket on the Marriot. It was also cool to see how the “bubble” worked – we were able to see from afar Oregon and Creighton board the busses from the hotel to go to practice. We then walked around Indy – it is an awesome city with a lot to see, very walkable and a lot of green space. We were definitely impressed.
Friday:
Gameday. We woke up early and decided to visit the NCAA Hall of Champions (located next to the NCAA headquarters) which has sports artifacts donated from colleges around the nation, as well as the National Championship trophy on display.
Then, we fired up some electric scooters and rode along the river that runs through the city, a perfect (and very dangerous) activity for a beautiful day. Then, we stopped by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway – which was massive and very cool to see in person.
Finally, we drove up to Butler to get ready for the game. Side note: Butler’s campus is incredibly nice – they even have a park on campus – and it is much bigger than I expected for a school with about 4000 students. Anyway, we ended up at Chatham Tap on Butler’s campus which was awesome –a ton of Nova fans were there, including all of the families of the players and even Father Peter and Mark Jackson stopped by, accompanied by Collin Gillespie and Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree. It was nice to talk Nova and basketball with other alums in preparation for the game. The sense was that people were cautiously optimistic going into the game with a week to prepare for Baylor. After meeting up with one of former coworkers from the Villanova Intramurals department, we walked over to Hinkle about a half hour before tip-off.
Hinkle is an awesome stadium, it may be one of my favorite basketball arenas I’ve visited. It’s small, but there may not be a bad seat in the house. We were in the last row, but still had an incredible view of the action – it is definitely a unique stadium to watch basketball in.
The 25% capacity stadium was probably filled with 75% Baylor fans, yet in the first half, the Villanova fans were making all of the noise. From tip off, our row was in full student section mode, screaming “Let’s Go Nova” and “Defense” chants that probably pissed off the entire section of Baylor fans in front of us. We looked great in the first half, and we were riding high at the start of the second, including going nuts during Brandon’s one-handed tomahawk dunk. But Baylor turned it on and used their athleticism to their advantage, causing six straight turnovers in the second half. They took the lead and never looked back. Despite the loss, it was great to see in-person basketball for the first time in over a year (the last time I saw a game in-person was the Kansas game last season) and see Nova for the first time at a March Madness game in-person. The team fought hard despite adversity and to see them play in a tournament game was a great end to my senior year.
Thank you to Jerry Quinn for creating this essay contest and making this whole experience possible – it truly has been the highlight of my final semester. Go Cats!
Thursday:
Hi, my name is Sean Burke and I was lucky enough to be this year’s VUSports Student Essay Challenge winner. I am a senior set to graduate in May and was excited to see Villanova play in the tournament for the first time. My roommate and I hit the road bright and early at 5 am for the 10-hour drive from Villanova to Indianapolis. We ended up stopping in Columbus to see the Ohio State campus and after passing about 20 March Madness signs, wound up getting to Indy around 3. Literally the first thing we saw driving into Indianapolis was Gonzaga’s coach Mark Few walking across the street from the hotel to the convention center for practice – this made us realize that this trip was actually happening and March Madness was definitely here. It was incredibly interesting to see March Madness all in one location – the whole city had march madness signage everywhere – including the massive bracket on the Marriot. It was also cool to see how the “bubble” worked – we were able to see from afar Oregon and Creighton board the busses from the hotel to go to practice. We then walked around Indy – it is an awesome city with a lot to see, very walkable and a lot of green space. We were definitely impressed.
Friday:
Gameday. We woke up early and decided to visit the NCAA Hall of Champions (located next to the NCAA headquarters) which has sports artifacts donated from colleges around the nation, as well as the National Championship trophy on display.
Then, we fired up some electric scooters and rode along the river that runs through the city, a perfect (and very dangerous) activity for a beautiful day. Then, we stopped by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway – which was massive and very cool to see in person.
Finally, we drove up to Butler to get ready for the game. Side note: Butler’s campus is incredibly nice – they even have a park on campus – and it is much bigger than I expected for a school with about 4000 students. Anyway, we ended up at Chatham Tap on Butler’s campus which was awesome –a ton of Nova fans were there, including all of the families of the players and even Father Peter and Mark Jackson stopped by, accompanied by Collin Gillespie and Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree. It was nice to talk Nova and basketball with other alums in preparation for the game. The sense was that people were cautiously optimistic going into the game with a week to prepare for Baylor. After meeting up with one of former coworkers from the Villanova Intramurals department, we walked over to Hinkle about a half hour before tip-off.
Hinkle is an awesome stadium, it may be one of my favorite basketball arenas I’ve visited. It’s small, but there may not be a bad seat in the house. We were in the last row, but still had an incredible view of the action – it is definitely a unique stadium to watch basketball in.
The 25% capacity stadium was probably filled with 75% Baylor fans, yet in the first half, the Villanova fans were making all of the noise. From tip off, our row was in full student section mode, screaming “Let’s Go Nova” and “Defense” chants that probably pissed off the entire section of Baylor fans in front of us. We looked great in the first half, and we were riding high at the start of the second, including going nuts during Brandon’s one-handed tomahawk dunk. But Baylor turned it on and used their athleticism to their advantage, causing six straight turnovers in the second half. They took the lead and never looked back. Despite the loss, it was great to see in-person basketball for the first time in over a year (the last time I saw a game in-person was the Kansas game last season) and see Nova for the first time at a March Madness game in-person. The team fought hard despite adversity and to see them play in a tournament game was a great end to my senior year.
Thank you to Jerry Quinn for creating this essay contest and making this whole experience possible – it truly has been the highlight of my final semester. Go Cats!
