Cody is a long time North Carolina college basketball fan. And I've been watching a good portion of their games with him for the past 8 years... so I've become invested in it too.
So when we found out that they were the number one seed playing in Columbus for rounds 1 and 2 of the NCAA tournament, we decided that we just HAD to go watch them!
Cody took work off early on Friday and came and picked me up at work, and we were off!! We bought 2 different sessions of tickets and you get two games per session. The first game in our session started at 6:40pm, and we got to the arena area around 5:30pm. We were planning on grabbing dinner around the arena. There were a bunch of places to eat around the arena, but they were all beyond packed!! Most had hour and a half to two and half hour waits. So we just settled for going into the arena and hoping that they something for us to eat!
The first game of our session was Washington Vs. Utah State. Washington ended up winning the game. I thought that the mascots were hilarious from these groups! They were facing off at each other and it was really funny!!
One thing that I have to point out about Nationwide Arena is that their bathroom situation was AMAZING! I have never walked into a bathroom at any event during half time and been able to walk right in without a line. They had soooo many stalls and sinks! Bonus points for them! Actually it was funny, because the guys had a line and the girls didn't. I think that they focused a lot of the bathroom space on the women vs the men.
Finally at 9:40pm it was time for our North Carolina Tarheels!!!
We couldn't believe it!!!! They were down by 5 at half time! I admit it was a pretty sad first half, and we were a little nervous during half time. You'd hate to see a 1 seed fall to a 16 seed! Especially when it's your favorite team! And especially when you already bought a hotel room and tickets for the next game on Sunday! AH!
But no worries! They came to play in the second half and locked up the game pretty quickly!! We were super excited and were ready for the next round on Sunday!
Saturday we went to Ikea for a few hours! We had never been to one and wanted to see what all the hype was about.
You wouldn't believe how packed the parking lot was! The pictures really don't do it justice. They had so many rows of parking that they had row signs to help you remember where you parked!! Even though the parking lot was so full, the Ikea building is so big that we never felt too crowded.
Something unique about Ikea is that they have showrooms that show case their products set up in different ways. Each room tells you the size of the room, and it gives you ideas of how to set it up.
Every item has a description and price tag on it, so if you see something that you like you can pick it up in their warehouse downstairs.
After Ikea, we checked into our hotel. We are Hyatt members so we had points that gave us free nights in the hotels. The first night we could only get a Hyatt a little further out, so we decided to switch to a closer one.
After checking into our hotel, we decided to head to dinner. We had hoped to go to BD's Mongolian BBQ on Friday night, but since the wait had been so long we decided to go on Saturday instead. We rarely get to go to this food chain, because there isn't one in Cleveland. So we were pumped! I love the way that they let you pick your own items and then cook it fresh for you. We left there and we were stuffed!! We were literally planning on going back to our room and laying down to watch the Saturday March Madness games and staying in for the night.
However, as luck would have it... a younger kid got into the elevator with us. He was wearing a Michigan jersey and the Michigan game was currently on, so I said... Ohhh you must be in a hurry to run up to your room and watch the game... And he was like, no I have to change my shirt... the North Carolina basketball team is going to be at Eddie George's 27 Grille at 7:40pm tonight! And we were like whaaaaat!?!?!
And in case you didn't catch it from the previous picture... You can see how close this place was to our hotel! Cody's like... walking distance makes it sound too far... it was more like crawling distance. Like leave our room and be there in 2 minutes distance! So we were PUMPED! We went over around 6:30 and got our spot at the bar. Luckily this place is a sports bar/restaurant so we were able to have some drinks at the bar, watch the other March Madness games, and wait to see if the team would actually show up.
And would you believe it!?!?! Right at 7:40pm... I notice that the employees and shutting the curtains in their private room, and I see a police escort (which escorts every team) and a bus pull up! Sure enough Sean May (Assistant Coach) walks in and checks the team in and they start walking in!! We were like 2 feet away from them!
Here are two of Carolina's starters, Cam Johnson and Coby White!
There's my favorite player, Luke Maye, in the white shirt. I know... not the best picture of him, but I was trying not to be a wacko and be right up in their business as they walked in.
The team made their way into the private room behind the OHIO sign. I was able to get a picture of the inside of it after they left.
But what really made our night was that the guys had to walk past us to get to the bathroom... so when they were on their way back that meant selfie time!!! The first picture is of Kendall Marshall who was a point guard on the 2011 and 2012 team. Had he not gotten hurt in the 2nd round game in 2012 they had a very good shot at the national title.
Speaking of national champions. This picture we got was taken with Sean May. He was a part of the national championship team that won in 2005. He was named the final four's Most Outstanding Player that year. We were pretty excited and a little nervous to ask them but some liquid courage helped us out. We were pumped to get pictures with these guys. We were hoping that a couple of the starters would walk by too, but they didn't.
It's hard to tell in this picture, but as the guys were walking out Luke Maye stopped and talked and took pictures with the kid that tipped us off. I was SO hoping to get a picture with him! I called out to him, but he's like a foot and half taller than me and the other guys were already outside... So he was walking kinda fast and I don't think that he heard me! I went over to the kids and their dad's afterwards and thanked them for the tip. They said that Luke was super nice to them too.
I also got a video of the team walking out as they left and took some pictures of them getting on their bus.
There they go onto the bus!!
It was so cool getting to see the guys up close!! It totally made our trip for us! We were SO lucky that we happened to run into that kid! How sad would we have been to have found out later that they had been there (steps away from us) and that we'd missed it! Some things are just meant to be I guess! Lucky us!
Our luck continued the next day... The sessions that we paid for were the early games of the day (noon and 2:30pm) which really helped because we were driving home and going to work the next day. We got to watch Tennessee vs Iowa. And it's hard to tell from this picture, but the arena was PACKED with Tennessee fans (this is just one area in the picture), and then there was a small Iowa fan section on the other side.
At first it looked like Tennessee was just going to kill Iowa. At one point around half time they were up by 25 points!! But in the second half, Iowa slowly started chipping away at that lead. It took a long time to think that they maybe had a shot... About 3 minutes left in the game and the score was within 5 points... It looked like Tennessee was going to get a stop, but with about 2 seconds left on the shot clock a guy from Iowa hit a fade away 3 pointer! Everyone in the arena went NUTS at that point! The whole arena was on it's feet cheering, and a whole bunch of North Carolina fans had trickled in so Iowa suddenly had a lot more people rooting for them! The game ended up going to overtime but then it was never a question of Tennessee coming away with the win at that point... they completely took over in OT. But boy what a game!!! It was SO exciting... and I've had Rocky Top stuck in my head ever since... It's Tennessee's fight song and their band played it religiously!! But talk about a good game before ours to watch!
So there was a guy behind us that was so funny and so annoying at the same time. He had a LOUD comment on everything! I swear he thought he was North Carolina's other coach. But I have to admit he was pretty spot on at times, and he was pretty hilarious on a few occasions... He didn't like the calls that the one ref was making and he goes.... "YOU! YOU! You TERRIBLE!! We gonna meet up in the street and one of 2 things gonna happen. You gonna beat me up or I'm gonna beat you up" It might be a "you had to be there thing" but it was pretty funny. Then Colby White hit four 3's pretty quickly in a row which really isn't like him... and the guy goes: WHO...??? WHO...? Who. are. YOU?! And everyone was nodding in agreement because it was so true! Then later another guy Nassir Little had a break out game with 20 points (he's not a starter) and he had a really good play under the hoop and he did the who are you thing again and it was pretty funny. And yes... I totally faked a selfie to get a picture of this dude hahaha!!
The best part was that North Carolina took care of business from the start. I don't think that Washington was really within 10 points for most of the game. So it was a stress free and fun game for us to watch. Can't wait for the next round!! Go Heels!!
Our short little weekend trip ended up being GREAT! We had so much fun and it was such a good experience. We saw that Cleveland is hosting a first weekend of the tournament next year and we are fully planning on buying tickets in advance and going without even caring about who is playing. It was just a fun atmosphere to be in! Especially on Sunday when the games were a little bit closer.
