Written by Luke Winn at SI.com
The piano and the bass line were loud enough to hear through the grey-metal door of Northwestern’s locker room, because these days, the Wildcats travel with a concert-grade speaker that required its own cleared-luggage tag from Vivint Arena security. The speaker sits nearest the locker of fifth-year senior Sanjay Lumpkin, and Sanjay the de-facto deejay chose Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg’s “Still D.R.E.” as the first song on the playlist following the first NCAA tournament win, in the first NCAA tournament trip in Northwestern history—a 68-66 victory over Vanderbilt in an 8–9 seed game on Thursday afternoon. “Still D.R.E.” was not thematically appropriate—it’s a song about a legend re-emerging to reclaim his throne, and Northwestern is the most non-legendary program in all of the major conferences, one that only just made its way out of infamy—but the Wildcats can be excused: This was a day where none of the program’s old themes seemed to apply.
The fact that Northwestern was playing on the opening day of an NCAA tournament—after missing the dance in each of its previous 77 years of existence—felt surreal. It was such a happening that Wildcats fans outnumbered those of every other team in Salt Lake—including the fanbase of their next opponent, No. 1 Gonzaga—and included former star players (Evan Eschmeyer, Tavares Hardy, Kevin Coble) and arguably the school’s most famous basketball-world alum: a non-player, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey. That Northwestern not only acted like it belonged but was dominating, taking a 15-point lead over Vandy with 13:42 left in the second half, at 49–34, was surreal.
To continue reading this article, click here.
