The morning started bright and early for thousands of IU men's basketball fans as students and Bloomington residents filed into Assembly Hall starting at 8 a.m. to grab seats to be a part of ESPN's College GameDay, shot live from Branch McCracken Court.
The fans were loud and rowdy nearly the entire time, so hearing what Jay Bilas, Rece Davis, Jalen Rose and Digger Phelps had to say as far as analysis on tonight's matchup, among other things, was often difficult to hear from the media seats. I was able to grab some quotes from the ESPN crew, as well as some observations on the crowd, the signs and the atmosphere inside Assembly Hall:
- From a rough estimate, I'd say there were about 5,000-6,000 fans there by the time the show got rolling. Fans were put on the west side of Assembly Hall and filled all the seats to about two-thirds of the way up the main level. I honestly expected there to be more than actually showed up, but with the temperature in the teens and a couple inches of snow falling last night, I'm sure several people decided to stay in bed.
- Rose donned a candy stripe blazer for the beginning of both hours of the show, going against his Michigan roots that date back to when he played as a member of the "Fab Five" for the Wolverines. There were several signs around Assembly Hall poking fun at Rose, including those that claimed the "real Fab Five" consisted of the five championship banners hanging in the south end of Assembly Hall.
- There were some other clever signs among the crowd that caught my eye. My favorites included :"Mom, send me money. Vic stole mine", "Michigan uses antler spray", "In 49 states, this is Super Bowl weekend, but this is Indiana".
- After the first commercial break, two students from among the crowd emerged with Jalen Rose No. 5 Michigan jerseys, and they of course stirred up their fair share of boos for several moments.
- Phelps was very high on the Florida Gators during much of the program that didn't deal with the IU-Michigan matchup. "You win national titles playing defense," Phelps said. "To me, this team is the best defensive team in the country." Bilas, though, had quite a different opinion about the Gators. "They aren't playing in the most difficult conference,"Bilas said. "These teams (IU and Michigan) are. If Florida played Michigan today, they would lose."
- Midway through the broadcast, Davis, sat down Phelps, Rose and Bilas and asked each of their opinions on six aspects of tonight's game, namely transition offense, dribble penetration, 3-point shooting, offensive rebounding, free throw shooting and half-court defense. All three analysts favored IU in the final three categories, while only Phelps liked IU in the transition, only Bilas liked the Hoosiers in dribble penetration and both Phelps and Bilas liked IU from beyond the arc.
- When it came down to the end of the broadcast, Phelps, Rose and Bilas made their picks. As many would have expected, Rose sided with his Wolverines, even though he sat through much of Saturday morning wearing cream and crimson. Bilas, who wore the classic candy stripe pants as a part of his suit during the whole broadcast, picked IU, as did Phelps.
- After the culmination of College GameDay, Phelps had this to say about the atmosphere this morning, as well as the importance of a loud Hoosier crowd tonight:
"Great GameDay. They smelled it, especially when you have No. 1 coming to town. There's an extra edge. Obviously at Notre Dame, we had a little success with No. 1 teams. It's hard not to, and it's got nothing to do with Michigan. It's that they've got the tag of No. 1, and as I said earlier in the show, this could be the first of four meetings for Michigan-IU.
"I love the atmosphere here because things happen when you bring No. 1 in your house. I told the students earlier today 'You, for 40 minutes, stay on them. They know what they've got to do, but when they get their momentum going or there's a time when you've got to stop whatever Michigan's doing, it's the crowd that gets you into that mode and pull off the upset.' "
