Inside Cameron Indoor Stadium

My wife and I went with our friend, Jeff, to watch the NCAA Championship Game at Cameron Indoor Stadium tonight. It's very late, but I wanted to post some of the pictures we took

So the university administration made the decision to open up the Blue Devils' arena to students and their spouses for the game. About 5000 of us took them up on it. It might sound weird since the actual game was being played 650 miles away in Indianapolis, but it was a pretty incredible experience. I've been to several games at Cameron over the past few years when the arena was packed, but I've never heard it louder than it was in the last 10 minutes of regulation tonight. It seemed like every undergraduate at the entire university was there and screaming their lungs out (and that's probably not far from the truth).

These are mostly pictures taken in the leadup to the game. We got into Cameron about an hour prior to tip-off. The energy in the room only increased throughout that time. I've got some great videos from both halftime and post-game, but I have no energy to put them on Youtube at present. (I've got two videos up on Youtube now and will embed them in posts in the coming days!)

Enjoy the photos, Duke fans. And let me say two things before I sign off: First, the Butler Bulldogs played out of their minds for this entire tournament, including tonight against Duke. The job they did rebounding in the first half of tonight's game is almost inexplicable. Outsized at every position, their effort at getting to the ball was remarkable. They played with as much heart as any basketball team as I've ever seen, and truly, the final couple of minutes could have gone either way. Their coach and their players deserve huge respect for what they accomplished.

Second, for those of you who aren't Duke fans, don't buy into the Goliath squashing David script. It's too easy. I've been at Duke for four years now, and I can tell you a few things for a fact: First, the Duke players are not snobbish or elitest or any of those adjectives people use as an excuse to cast them in a bad light. Second, Coach K is a humble and faithful man who loves his players and always pays respect to his opponents (as anyone could see from his postgame comments tonight).

And third, despite what anybody thinks about Duke's prowess on the national basketball scene, in this day and age, it is tough to convince top-quality students to come to a school and actually spend 3 to 4 years playing and studying - all the while engaged in the process of development in both basketball skill and personal character. Prior to this year, a lot of folks questioned whether Coach K was following a philosophy that was hopelessly out of date. He proved them wrong tonight.