Old or new to March Madness, tourney still has special feel to players
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- As Duke's Jahlil Okafor answered a question at the podium, uproarious shouts and cheers sprang up suddenly from the curtained room beside him. He stopped for a moment, as did everyone else, turning his head quizzically towards the media workroom next to him.
The press that was there had all screamed aloud, reacting organically to the moment Thursday when Georgia State's R.J. Hunter hit the game-winning 3-pointer over Baylor, giving the NCAA tournament's first day yet another exciting upset.
On the way to their locker room, Duke sophomore Matt Jones and some of his teammates stopped to catch the end of the UAB-Iowa State game. Iowa State is the No. 3 seed in Duke's region, and looked at by many as a trendy pick to knock off the Blue Devils.
"That was crazy," Jones said, shaking his head. "But at the same time, I know the feeling so I know how they're feeling right now."
Duke -- a No. 3 seed a year ago -- lost to No. 14-seeded Mercer in Raleigh, and so yes, Jones does know that feeling.
Michigan State freshman Marvin Clark, Jr. is part of a program that views NCAA tournament berths as routine. But it's his first time.
"First off, instead of watching it, watching it and just watching the games, now I'm actually in it. Now I'm watching Selection Sunday and it actually pertains to me. It's crazy," he said, shaking his head. "The feeling's kind of crazy that I'm in the NCAA tournament. I'm happy to be here. This is all new to me, so I'm just trying to soak it in."
It can be overwhelming to freshmen, who sometimes find the moment a little too big. Routines change a lot during this time, as everything as structured according to what the NCAA wants teams to do. The media crams into a tiny locker room, usually dozens of reporters -- some armed with enormous cameras -- and tries to coax an original answer out of a player who finds himself surrounded by bright lights and arms thrust in his face holding various recording devices.
Some of them are more used to that than others. Michigan State is, but it's all new to Clark.
"This right here is kind of weird," he said, gesturing at the tiny space. "We haven't practiced and now we're coming over here for a media practice, which is like, what is a media practice? That right there in itself is kind of weird for me."
Michigan State's Travis Trice is a senior, and he will be in his fourth straight tournament and it's the 17th straight that coach Tom Izzo has taken the Spartans to.
The Big 10 title game that the Spartans lost to Wisconsin nearly ran up until Selection Sunday began (it went to overtime). And so Trice and his teammates didn't get to find out their NCAA tournament fate (seed line, region, etc.) until they got on the bus.
"We didn't see the beginning part. We saw the bracketology afterwards on the bus. We had the satellite on the bus," Trice said. "We just knew -- we didn't know exactly where we were at but when they went through it, we saw where we were. We were still mad about the loss."
In spite of all that success both he and the program has had in terms of reaching the postseason, Trice said that he's still thankful.
"Definitely don't take any of it for granted. Early on in the season, we were kind of on the bubble watch," Trice said. "So it caused us to focus in on making it to the tournament and now, we're here. You've just got to take it one day at a time, take in the whole experience."
Duke's Jones knows the feeling of being upset by a lower seed. It might be fun for the rest of the country, but it's not fun for he and his teammates. It's not fun for the favorite, either.
That's why he wasn't happy that Iowa State lost, even though it makes Duke's road easier -- at least, theoretically.
But funnily enough, Jones was one of those viewers in love with the Cinderella not all that long ago -- back in 2012, when No. 15-seed Lehigh upset No. 2-seed Duke.
"Duke wasn't on my radar back then but just as a fan, to see what C.J. McCollum did against Duke, it was a great performance," Jones said. "It was impressive."
The players aren't supposed to fill out brackets now, and Jones said he never did before college, either. Most of them watch for the fun of watching college basketball.
Clark, Jr. said he worshipped Ohio State's Evan Turner and Kentucky's John Wall growing up. Virginia freshman Devon Hall said that he was a North Carolina fan as a kid. Duke freshman Justise Winslow says March Madness makes him think of the Duke-Butler game in 2010, when Gordon Hayward's desperation heave very nearly gave the Bulldogs a national title.
But often, they have trouble pointing to a specific game, or a specific player, or a specific memory.
Playing in March was something that they grew up dreaming of, and now they're here, doing it.
"Just growing up, you watch the tournament, you see the upsets, you see the energy, but just now that I'm a part of it, just watching those games and being part of those big games, you can really just kind of feel the energy through the TV," Winslow said.
"Just watching some of these early games, the game last night that Robert Morris won, that was a really intense game. It just seems like the energy picks up even more when you're a part of the whole tournament. That's something that I'm really excited about. I'm trying to cherish each of these moments and trying to have fun."
