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First dance: Northwestern officially selected to first-ever NCAA tournament

What took them so long? It doesn’t matter now. Another sports drought officially went down on Sunday afternoon as the Northwestern Wildcats were selected to the NCAA tournament for the first time in school history. An eight seed, they’ll face No. 9 Vanderbilt in the West region in Salt Lake City on Thursday.

Northwestern got the call at Welsh-Ryan Arena, where fans gathered for a last-hurrah watch party before construction on the arena begins in earnest.

Northwestern’s wait was made all the more agonizing by CBS, which announced the school in the final region just over half an hour into the show.