March Madness is an exciting time for any college basketball fan. Throughout college campuses, iPhones can be seen live-streaming games behind textbooks during class.
That excitement just about triples when a team nearby is doing extremely well in the bracket. By the time that team makes it to the championship game, almost everyone nearby who lost hope in their initial team starts to root for the hometown heroes.
So you can imagine the excitement on Cabrini’s campus when the neighbors down the street were able to actually win this year’s NCAA championships.
But how do all of the original Villanova fans feel about everyone in a 50 mile radius suddenly claiming to be their biggest fan? Are they offended by all of the bandwagon fans, or just happy to have more people to celebrate with?
“I consider myself a Villanova fan from a young age,” freshman Tyler Klitchko said. “I feel like it comes with any good sports team that everyone wants to join the bandwagon.”
Some students were not even trying to hide the fact that they jumped on the Nova bandwagon after the big win. After attending the celebration parade on April 8 in Philly, sophomore Chris Fonte tweeted, “Even though I refused to put up the V (Providence fan at heart) great time at the #NovaParade.”
Freshman Marykate Sapata agreed that even though she was not a Villanova fan before the championship, you could feel the excitement of them winning even on Cabrini’s campus.
“It’s exciting other people are happy about it and it gives a good vibe on campus,” she said. “Especially when it started getting near the end [of the tournament] everyone was hype about it.”
Even though not everyone may have been rooting for Nova at the beginning of the tournament, their support could be felt for miles in the nearby area both on the night of the championship game and in Philadelphia for the parade a few days later.