Even with its primary tenants in a different time zone, the Pit was rocking Saturday.

The day’s two NCAA Tournament third-round contests drew an announced crowd of 12,128. At times, the noise level made the crowd seem larger.

Stands were most packed for the closing minutes of game one between Wisconsin and Vanderbilt, but that was due in large part to a late-arriving mob of Colorado fans. The Buffaloes were by far the best draw among the eight teams that played in Albuquerque, and their crowd was easily the rowdiest.

A number of (presumably) Lobo fans could be seen exiting the Pit between games, preferring to head somewhere that UNM’s third-round matchup with Louisville was being televised. But several hundred who stayed to the end were able to watch the Lobos and Cardinals finish up on the Pit’s big screens.

SUPERCOACH: There was an enormous poster being waved in the stands after Saint Louis University knocked off Memphis on Friday night in Columbus, Ohio, featuring a cartoon of Saint Louis’ coach Rick Majerus with the proclamation, “SLUperman.”

That was a play on the initials of the school Majerus has returned to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 12 years. And only the seventh time ever.

“Probably a restaurant owner,” said Majerus, the rotund veteran who earned his college basketball chops three decades ago at Marquette and later left a mark on Ball State and, especially, Utah.

“You had six-pack abs on the poster,” Majerus was told.

His response: “Six-pack abs,” he said. “I was born with a jelly belly. But I appreciate the nice thought.”
— This article appeared on page D4 of the Albuquerque Journal