With apologies to Tobacco Road, the new center of the basketball universe is Richmond, Va.
With Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Richmond both reaching the NCAA tournament’s Sweet 16, a population of 200,000-plus has caught some serious March Madness.
“The city is on the edge,” said Richmond mayor Dwight C. Jones, who is scrambling to rearrange his schedule to try and fly to San Antonio to watch both teams play Friday. “Excitement is everywhere.”
“Obviously, everybody’s pumped,” said Jack Lauterback, a local bartender and writer. “I can’t even imagine how cool it is to be one of the players.”
Richmond can serve as the old-school cool, because it has been here before, even if it was 23 years ago when it surprised the basketball world as a 13th seed.
VCU, on the other hand, is permitted to be jump up-and-down cool because not only is it the first trip to the Sweet 16 for the school, nobody — and we mean nobody — expected the Rams to be around for the second weekend of the tournament.
Heck, they were even forced to play one of the “play-in” games, a symbol of being one of the last eight of the 68 teams in the field. People still argue Colorado deserved to get in before them.
Let them argue. All VCU knows is it has something to add to the highlight reel in addition to Eric Maynor’s shot with 1.8 seconds to go that bounced Duke from the first round of the 2007 tournament.
But make no mistake. What the Spiders and Rams have accomplished in the same year is improbable. According to the local Richmond Times-Dispatch, only two other cities had a pair of teams in the Sweet 16 in the past 25 years: Los Angeles and Philadelphia.
Some of the excitement included lighthearted ribbing of ESPN’s Dick Vitale, who was one of the critics who rallied against the selection committee after it included VCU in the field.
“Considering how upset Dick Vitale and the rest of the ESPN talking heads were, I find this to be the supreme justice of the basketball gods that our city gets two in the Sweet 16,” said Richmond Magazine editor-in-chief Susan Winiecki, whose brother Mike was a member of that 1988 Richmond squad.
Winiecki said the buzz almost equaled local singer Elliot Yamin’s top-3 finish years ago on “American Idol.” But no one could have predicted this happening — according to ESPN.com, just 0.4 percent of the brackets in the site’s Tournament Challenge had both teams in the regional semifinals.
The spotlight that will shine on both schools will reveal plenty of quirks. Despite bringing heaps of energy to the court, Richmond’s mascot is known for looking nothing like a spider.
Meanwhile, Deadspin.com posted a video yesterday of VCU’s pep band director Ryan Kopacsi, who is known for peeling off a few layers of clothes as he dances.
Kopacsi explained that 13 years ago, he joined the band as a music education major and said he was “a little bit of a misfit,” when the athletic director at the time pulled him out to use his boundless energy to run the band and become something of a superfan.
“I just ripped my shirt off one day and it got a pretty good reaction,” he said. “It’s just something else to throw people’s hands up in the air. We provide an environment for games that’s a bit different and out of the box.”
Though the schools are only about six miles away from each other, the locals seem to think they might as well be in separate states. VCU is the state university right in the heart of downtown, while UR is the private school in a quieter part of the city.
Still, even if one team bowed out, the fans will still root for the other. “We have been able to witness two great basketball programs emerge,” said sales specialist Adam Gresko. “The buzz in Richmond keeps getting louder.”
The noise would reach a deafening roar if the Spiders somehow topple No. 1 seed Kansas and VCU defeats fellow giant killer Florida State. The two squads would then meet in the Elite Eight, with one team guaranteed a ticket to the Final Four in Houston.
“[The fans] aren’t over the edge yet,” said Jon Newman, a partner at a Richmond PR firm.
“Somehow, if they both won, the town would close on Sunday.”
TALE OF THE TAPE
University of Richmond
ENROLLMENT: Around 4,400
NOTABLE ALUMNI: Todd McShay (ESPN personality), Tim Finchem (PGA Tour commissioner), Josh Abramson (co-founder of CollegeHumor.com)
MOST FAMOUS NBA ALUMNUS: Forward Johnny Newman (played from 1986 to 2002)
MASCOT: Spidey the Spider. He’ll undergo a makeover because he “wasn’t intimidating” and his name is trademarked by Marvel Comics. A new mascot will roll out this June.
DID YOU KNOW?: First-year UR men and women participate in Investiture Night and Proclamation Night, respectively, in which they sign a pledge to the honor code.
Virginia Commonwealth University
ENROLLMENT: Around 32,000
NOTABLE ALUMNI: David Baldacci (author), Brandon Inge (Tigers third baseman), Hunter “Patch” Adams (doctor)
MOST FAMOUS NBA ALUMNUS: Guard Gerald Henderson (played from 1979 to 1992)
MASCOT: Rodney the Ram. A redesigned version will arrive this spring.
DID YOU KNOW?: VCU was once ranked No. 1 overall in the country for its graduate programs in sculpture and nurse anesthesia.
FIVE FACTS ABOUT THE CITY OF RICHMOND
1) In 1775, Patrick Henry delivered his famous “Give me liberty or give me death” speech at St. John’s Church.
2) Sci-fi metal band GWAR originated there in 1984 when Dave Brockie’s band Death Piggy donned costumes from a movie VCU students were putting together.
3) Coincidentally, the band met at Richmond Dairy, a building with huge milk bottle-shaped architecture at the corners. It’s now an apartment building with lofts inside the bottles.
4) Edgar Allen Poe is practically synonymous with Baltimore, but the author also lived in Richmond, where the Poe Museum is located.
5) The Science Museum of Virginia, located in Richmond, is home to the world’s largest kugel ball, a massive spherical sculpture that floats in water and can be rotated easily.
