Traffic was congested on 7th Street heading into the heart of downtown Minneapolis, even though tipoff in the Women's Final Four was three hours away.
Out-of-state fans gathered near buses in front of team hotels, waiting to send players off in style for the semifinals. Adult beverages flowed freely.
On the plaza outside Target Center, girls' basketball players laughed as they played a beanbag toss game. A line for merchandise was 10-deep.
There was even a guy walking around with two cats on his shoulders.
It all felt very ... alive, which is to say normal (except for the cats).
But that normalcy was also different from much of how downtown Minneapolis has often felt during the last two years.
Players have noted the same shift in their experience from last year to this year.
"Last year we were in the bubble. We were in San Antonio the whole time, and it was basically testing, practice and back to the hotel," UConn star Paige Bueckers, the former Hopkins standout, said Thursday. "I think we're all just grateful it's not that experience again, and we're excited to have fans."
FANS SHOW UP FOR BUECKERS, UCONN AT TOURNEY TOWN
On four canvas walls filled with good luck messages for the Final Four teams inside the Minneapolis Convention Center, the black Sharpie scratches overwhelmingly favored UConn and Bueckers. Minneapolis resident Candace Granberg watched her preteen daughter Gabby scribble a "let's go Paige!" on the wall.
"She's such a great role model on and off the court," Granberg said. "I couldn't ask for a better Minnesota girl to represent our state."
Gabby, who plays basketball, said she doesn't have a Bueckers poster in her bedroom yet, but she wants one. "She's so inspiring," Gabby said. "If a girl like her can make it to UConn, I can too."
TICKET SCALPING IN 2022
The death of physical tickets hasn't brought down scalping with it. Yet.
Ronnell Harris, a native of Kansas City, held a sign reading "I NEED TICKETS" across the street from Target Center.
On the other side of his poster is an old seating map of the Denver Broncos' stadium. With tickets all online since the outset of COVID-19, Harris has operated around the country with online ticket transfers — for the Final Four, he uses the official NCAA ticketing app.
As of 45 minutes minutes before the first semifinal game, he had yet to buy a ticket, though — a fact he blames on the strength of the remaining teams.
"It's all ones and twos left," he said.
Inventory might change after the field is narrowed from four to two.
BAND GAME STRONG
The South Carolina band is an enthusiastic bunch. With every basket by the Gamecocks in Friday's semifinal against Louisville, there were raucous cheers.
And the tunes were on point — perhaps the influence of the band's official mascot, which rests on one of the instruments: Gack, the llama.
LAST-MINUTE CALL ON LAST-ROW TICKETS
When word arrived at 6:30 a.m. Friday that she had the day off work, Mary Merg pulled the trigger on Final Four tickets. A coaching intern at Stanford from 2015-17, Merg roped her friend Svea Erlandson into $140 seats — the last row at the top of the southern corner of the arena.
Working in Madison, Wis., Merg and Erlandson packed the car and made the last-minute, four-hour drive to Minneapolis. They took their seats just in time for the start of Louisville-South Carolina. But they came for game two.
"I would have only come for Stanford," Merg said.
