Dance Diary

[Purple Reign]

24 hours til departure. I'll be heading down to Oklahoma City Tomorrow and I know many of will also be at the game (s). But assuming the rest of you might be interested, I thought I would try to post some moments from the Dance. I'll take a few pix and see if I can post them on the Nation starting Thurday. No doubt B.A.P. will have to help me. I'm pretty sure she'll be there.

PR

[Born-a-Panther]

PR -- I'll be there!! I'll do what I can to help ya out... go Panthers!

[panther2317]

Officially jealous!!!

I wish I could be there with you guys! Have a safe trip and have a lot of FUN!!! Keep us posted on life in OKLAHOMA!

GO PANTHERS!!!

[UNIpanther99]

is the band going this year?

[Purple Reign]

The band is in the building!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Born-a-Panther]

Just got back from visiting "Brick Town" in downtown OK. City -- what an awesome area. Ate at a sports bar, and some of the pep band members walked in while we were eating. Our waiter said, "I hope you guys beat Wisconsin -- I don't like 'em." I told him we'd take care of business. The staff in the hotel is wearing UNI tshirts and there are purple and gold balloons all over the lobby. Heck, even the flowers planted in front of the hotel are purple and yellow... I'm feelin' at home in this city already!! Go Panthers!!

[pantherman]

Hey

BAP are you going to write back?

[Purple Reign]

Pulses are quickening. Since arriving Wed there has not been too much to report. The team has been practicing at a local high school and doing the press obligations at the Ford Center. For the fans, yesterday was spent at a sports bar across the street from the team hotel watching all the games. Disappointment over Creighton's fortunes.

Many more fans have arrived here at the Embassy Suites. UBS has a table set up in the lobby and Panther clothing is selling big time. The team is down watching more Wisc.tape as I write this and will then go to the arena to watch part of the OSU game.

The sports bar across the street was not ready for the Panthers. Can you imagine the opening nite of March Madness and not staffing up. That didn't stop Mac's wife. We were told that a back area of the bar was not being staffed so we would not be able to order food. Theresa McDermott was not to be denied. A former waitress at a restaurant, Theresa grabbed menus and began taking drink and food orders. The staff of the restaurant loved it. Here is coaches wife hauling food orders around on trays, writing up food and drink orders, collecting money etc. It was hilarious!!!!

A little over 8 hours to tip time. Of the roughly 500 Panther fans down here, the one's I have talked to are very optimistic we can win this game. I think Benny Jake will shine tonite. This is his kind of setting and he wants to get another chance to experience the rush of Wichita. I told Rima that I think the summary statement for this game will be LIGHTS, CAMERA, JACOBSEN !!!!
He can't do it alone and he won't. I look for a tremendous TEAM effort and I look for Coleman to discover that this national stage thing is kinda fun so why not go with it.

Put on something Purple, pull up your chair, sit close to your TV's, turn down the volume and turn up Rima and Boyle, grab a beverage of choice and yell your lungs out so the guys can hear you down here. We will do all we can down here and together, with positive thoughts, by 8 PM, we'll be celebrating in Okie City while some of you start packing for a drive down for Sunday's game.

LIGHTS, CAMERA, JACOBSEN-----LIGHTS, CAMERA, PANTHERS !!!!!!!

PR

[Marc Wigim]

The band has been in OK City since Wednesday.... the air is one of confusion and excitement... although the Embassy Suites bonked and overbooked which in turn sent the band and cheerleaders to La Quinta (we left shortly after finding out what a nasty area it was in), we are now in the Holiday Inn and enjoying life.

The two squads showed up in OK City for sightseeing yesterday. We visited the memorial... very sobering. We also visited bricktown, and took the water taxi. Very nice time overall. It is now time to do what we came to do, and make sure that we leave everyone in the country asking the same question:

"Who are these Northern Iowa Panthers?"

[UNICats]

Speaking of the band, I hear the UNI band pulled double duty Friday night!! According to the Wichita Eagle, Bucknell did not bring their band to the tournament. Since Bucknell and the UNI band were sharing a motel, they came up with some sort of deal. Then UNI band put on orange shirts and played for the Bucknell fans, team, and cheerleaders!!

My dad and I were at the game, sitting almost directly behind the Wisconsin band. I did notice during pregame of the KU-Bucknell game that Bucknell did not have a band in their area. A few minutes later, there was a band assembled, pumping out the tunes. I never realized they were Panthers in Bison clothing until I read the Wichita paper on my way home today!!

What a classy show of sportsmanship by all parties that brought this 'deal' together!! You band members on this board deserve a pat on the back and our admiration for 'doing the right thing' for the Bucknell fans!! Hope you guys get to play tomorrow as well!! (If Bucknell beats Wisconsin, could the UNI band represent the Bison in the Sweet 16??).

[Marc Wigim]

Sadly, I don't think that's a go. Although our director talked to the AD and President of Bucknell... they were trying to work something out, but there's too much red tape between the universities trying to lease us out. You'd better believe we'd do it though! Bucknell beating KU was a nice consolation after a hard loss to UW.

By the way... Bucknell's fans and team are a VERY classy bunch. Everyone we saw thanked us profusely, including all the players. I'm very impressed by that institution.

[#1pantherfan]

here is my story about the trip.

first off, we live on the Minnesota boader, we started off going down on thursday night. At a gas station in Missouri, I talked to a Wisconsin fan, he said they would not look past the uni game. We got down to oklahoma city on friday afternoon. We went to the UNI pre-game party in Pearl's Crabtown. It was a great time to see so many panther fans down there who drove 10 hours. I would say UNI had twice as many fans as Wisconsin at the game, it was great they put the UNI section on the TV side of the arena so we didn't make it on TV that much.
On saturday, we did all of our site seeing, we went to the oklahoma city bombing site, everyone needs to get down there and see that at least once in there life. While we were there, a survivor of the bombing was there and he talked about his expierence with us and some Southern Illinois people. then we went on the water taxi in bricktown, that is a wonderful place. The temperature was in the upper 60's and we walked around in t-shirt and shorts.
When we were leaving, I called my mom, she said, the town we live in got between 1 1/2 to 2 FEET of snow!!!!!!!! Sure enough when we got back, there was piles of snow everywhere and it looked pretty bad.

[UNICats]

On saturday, we did all of our site seeing, we went to the oklahoma city bombing site, everyone needs to get down there and see that at least once in there life. While we were there, a survivor of the bombing was there and he talked about his expierence with us and some Southern Illinois people.

My dad and I went to the Federal Memorial as well. It was indeed an incredibly sobering site. I thought the memorial was very well done. They put a lot of thought into the content and symbolism of the memorial. I had chills running down my spine during my hour there. I'm glad I took the time to visit this site. Highly recommended for anybody. Even if you are just passing through Oklahoma City in the future, take the time to stop by. You won't regret the experience.

[JCPanthers]

I had a great time in OK City and couldn't be more prouder of our Basketball program and especially the fans that we had down there. We cheered the ENTIRE game and even after we lost the team left the court to the chant of U.N.I...U.N.I...

When Mac came out to give his post game interview with Gary Rima we all stood up and cheered, which he waived to us in appreciation. It was awesome. I'm sure all the other fans in the arena thought that was pretty cool too.

The best sign I saw at the Ford Center was from some young female college students and it said: "Coach Mac is the cutest boy we've seen on Spring Break"

We WILL be back.....and I encourage everyone who has never experienced the MVC tourny or the NCAA tourny to mark those weekends off right now and make plans to attend. With almost everyone back next year, it will be another special and historic year for UNI basketball.

[wdm panther]

I also had a great time in Oklahoma City. Since I was not here in Des Moines, I was curious to see if Channel 8 or 13 had anybody there to cover the game. I know they were given credentials to get get in, but I doubt they sent anybody. They all raised hell last year and trashed UNI for not getting credentials.