Year 1: NCAA Tournament

As I stated earlier, we had a successful season. At one point we were 12-10, everyone (including our own fans) had counted us out. We finished the season on a 7-2 run, entering our conference tournament as a 6 seed. Meaning we had to play in the first round of the conference tournament.

It was at this time that I received a call from my family saying my grandfather was very ill. He had been in the hospital weeks prior, but he just didn't get any better. He died the morning after our first-round win and I returned home to be with family. I had to watch the rest of the tournament play out on television. Our semifinal game was actually the night of the funeral. I didn't get very many chances to check my phone, but when I did it was a welcoming comfort to see we were winning, and eventually won and earned a spot to play in the final against Kent State, our arch rival.

I stayed home and watched the final from my couch. A heavyweight battle between the two most physically talented teams in the conference. It took overtime to decide the game, but Akron won after 2 blocked shots on one possession denied Kent State the opportunity to win the game. As the buzzer sounded I remember running through my house screaming. In my first year on the college basketball scene, I get to go to the Big Dance!! A much-needed relief from the events of the weeks prior.

I returned to Akron in time to make the trip to Chicago. A 6-hour car ride with a co-worker and his girlfriend. I played Angry Birds the entire way until we reached the city. For those of you who don't know, the NCAA actually selects which hotels its competing schools will stay in during the tournament. We stayed at an extremely nice hotel in downtown Chicago, something everyone should get a chance to experience.

The day before the game we held practice at the University of Illinois-Chicago. We got a police escort on the bus, and a warm welcome from the UIC staff. We then had to have a "shootaround" at the United Center, which is more for the fans and press than it is for the players. One cool aspect of it, however, was walking into the United Center, where my boyhood idol (99% of basketball followers' idol) played.

I got to walk into the largest basketball stadium I've ever been in, and the school I worked for was the main attraction! The thrill of taking the court while the fans watch you warm-up is something I can't begin to describe. Chill bumps would be a severe understatement. The shootaround went well and we returned to the hotel for rest.

The next day we were in the lobby of the hotel, preparing to leave for the United Center, when our Director of Basketball Operations told us that we had to go to a meeting 3 floors up. If you haven't crammed 15 division-1 basketball athletes, 12 staff members, and 2 radio commentators onto 3 elevators, you haven't lived! We arrived on the third floor and were led down the hall to the left. As we got closer one of the staff members in the front opened 2 large doors leading to a ballroom.

Music started blaring, it sounded like our alma mater...

We get closer to the room, the music sounds as though our band is actually crammed into a hotel room practicing for the game that afternoon. I get closer to the doors, then I begin to hear chants and cheers from our cheerleading squad.

How cute, they've gathered to wish us off...what, all 15 of them?

I turn the corner, and to my surprise, it seems as if every Zip fan in the nation was crammed into this ballroom, a room much bigger than I anticipated. As the players made their way into the room the fans erupted with shouting and clapping. Goosebumps again...

Coach Dambrot gave a short speech and then we left to board the bus. Police escort through the city again. People stopping, turning, squinting their eyes to see if they could make out who the important people inside the bus were. "Who needs a police escort?" they had to be asking themselves. Little did they know it was a 15-seeded mid-major from Northeast Ohio...they would've been so disappointed.

The game itself was much tighter than Notre Dame wanted, with only a 4 point lead at halftime. In the second half, a poor shooting night for the Zips proved to be too much to overcome, losing 73-64.

Thus ended my first season as a Zip, and began my journey towards reaching my goals...