From the start, the game was wonderful, awful torture for the student fans, a back-and-forth struggle that led to shouting and then moaning, to excitedly batting beach balls high into the air, to sitting on hands.
When it was over, and Villanova had beaten Pittsburgh by the closest of margins in the latest of moments, the crowd of 300 in the student union had the lung power of 3,000. Surely, passers-by must have heard the roar out there in their cars whizzing past on Lancaster Avenue.
"Oh, my God! Oh, my God! I'm freaking out," shrieked Katarina Mayers, 21, a communications sophomore from Los Angeles, leaping to her feet and running from the Belle Air Terrace dining area of the Connelly Center.
She cried. She hugged strangers. She got on her phone to her dad and laid down the law. "I'm going to Michigan; I don't care what classes I miss," she said, referring to Detroit, the site of next weekend's Final Four round of the men's national basketball championship.
For the first time since 1985, before almost all of today's Villanova students were born, the Wildcats are going to the semifinal round.
It was almost enough to give a 20-year-old a heart attack, said Eric Grabowski, a sophomore business administration major from Robbinsville, N.J.
"Awesome," he said. "This was awesome."
All of this was at the "watch party" organized by the university, a nondrinkers party. Projection-screen TV. Several other TVs around the room. Free fountain drinks. And a DJ to keep the crowd lively at halftime.
It wasn't quite a full house, but the fans did everything they could to help their team, playing several hundred miles away in Boston. They shouted, "Let's go, Villanova" and "Defense! Defense!" When Pitt players went to the foul line, the viewers waved their arms and shouted to distract the shot.
"A lot of people I know went to Boston," said Emily Wakelin, 21, a junior majoring in electrical engineering.
While some tickets were available to students, many traveled the six or seven hours to Boston on spec - hoping to somehow buy a ticket, even if from a scalper outside the arena there.
Wakelin, who is from the Boston area, said that during the team's run to the Final Four, it had been "a great time to be at Villanova."
"Oh, my God, I want nothing more than for us to go all the way," she said. "Any time in my life, for Villanova to win, it would be incredible. For it to happen while I'm in school, it would be so awesome."
