Arizona is usually the main event at NCAA Tournament sites.
That wasn’t the case Thursday.
Northwestern was the show in town, with fans and alumni traveling from around the country to watch those Wildcats play in their first-ever NCAA Tournament game.
“Seinfeld” star Julia Louis-Dreyfus attended the game with her husband to watch her son, Charlie Hall, who is a walk-on on the Wildcats. Shawn Bradley has no connection to Northwestern, but the 7-foot-6-incher squeezed into a seat.
NBA analyst Doug Collins also was in the crowd. He got emotional watching his son, NU coach Chris Collins, lead the school to its first-ever NCAA Tournament victory.
The Northwestern-Vanderbilt game was nearly a sellout.
“When I saw that purple in that arena, man, that was awesome,” Chris Collins said. “Just to see all the people that came cross-country, came from all over the place, that have never seen this before, they willed us through. There were times I thought we were really tired and our crowd just kept us in it.”
