SALT LAKE CITY -- The Northwestern coaches had done a pretty good job of convincing every player on the team that their trek to Salt Lake City for the NCAA tournament -- the Wildcats’ first in the 78-year history of the program -- was a normal road trip.
But then redshirt senior captain Sanjay Lumpkin walked into the locker room before the game and saw the circular blue NCAA patch on his Northwestern uniform.
“It hit me,” Lumpkin said.
It hit him that not a single player who had worn a Northwestern jersey had ever played in one with that patch, that no Northwestern player had ever stepped on the NCAA tournament floor and that he was about to become one of the first.