NY Times · Apr 3, 2022
N.C.A.A. Men’s Basketball: Final Four
When he wrote about relying on the kindness of strangers, this city’s most famous playwright probably wasn’t envisioning Carolinians and conventioneers slurping down the dark roux gumbo at Herbsaint.
But then even Tennessee Williams may not have been able to conjure the blows that his adopted New Orleans has suffered over the last two years — and the welcome arrival of this better-than-fiction Final Four and the strangers it’s bringing to town.
Rarely in sports history has there been a convergence of a contest with the hype of the Duke-North Carolina showdown on Saturday, and a host city so desperately in need of the game-of-the-century buzz, and revenue, that comes with it.