Current Villanova students ready to party like 1985

From the start, the game was wonderful, awful torture for the student fans, a back-and-forth struggle that led to shouting and then moaning, to excitedly batting beach balls high into the air, to sitting on hands.

When it was over, and Villanova had beaten Pittsburgh by the closest of margins in the latest of moments, the crowd of 300 in the student union had the lung power of 3,000. Surely, passers-by must have heard the roar out there in their cars whizzing past on Lancaster Avenue.

"Oh, my God! Oh, my God! I'm freaking out," shrieked Katarina Mayers, 21, a communications sophomore from Los Angeles, leaping to her feet and running from the Belle Air Terrace dining area of the Connelly Center.

She cried. She hugged strangers. She got on her phone to her dad and laid down the law. "I'm going to Michigan; I don't care what classes I miss," she said, referring to Detroit, the site of next weekend's Final Four round of the men's national basketball championship.

For the first time since 1985, before almost all of today's Villanova students were born, the Wildcats are going to the semifinal round.

It was almost enough to give a 20-year-old a heart attack, said Eric Grabowski, a sophomore business administration major from Robbinsville, N.J.

"Awesome," he said. "This was awesome."

All of this was at the "watch party" organized by the university, a nondrinkers party. Projection-screen TV. Several other TVs around the room. Free fountain drinks. And a DJ to keep the crowd lively at halftime.

It wasn't quite a full house, but the fans did everything they could to help their team, playing several hundred miles away in Boston. They shouted, "Let's go, Villanova" and "Defense! Defense!" When Pitt players went to the foul line, the viewers waved their arms and shouted to distract the shot.

"A lot of people I know went to Boston," said Emily Wakelin, 21, a junior majoring in electrical engineering.

While some tickets were available to students, many traveled the six or seven hours to Boston on spec - hoping to somehow buy a ticket, even if from a scalper outside the arena there.

Wakelin, who is from the Boston area, said that during the team's run to the Final Four, it had been "a great time to be at Villanova."

"Oh, my God, I want nothing more than for us to go all the way," she said. "Any time in my life, for Villanova to win, it would be incredible. For it to happen while I'm in school, it would be so awesome."

Villanova spokesman Jonathan Gust said the university's 75-member public-safety team had put extra staff on duty "in preparation for postgame celebration."

During the week, men's basketball coach Jay Wright and the athletic department staff had videotaped a message sent to students by e-mail. The message "stressed the importance of celebrating responsibly," Gust said.

Twenty-four years ago, after Villanova won the national basketball championship over archrival Georgetown, the celebration got out of hand, with some students' engaging in vandalism in the area of the Main Line campus. The incidents damaged the school's reputation for years.

About 1,000 students made their way onto Lancaster Avenue shortly after the game ended. While most were well-behaved, according to police, some became rowdy.

About 10:30 p.m., several youths who did not appear to be old enough to be Villanova students dumped a trash can and set its contents on fire. They also knocked over some newspaper boxes and a speed limit sign.

At 10:40 p.m., police began to clear the intersection of Lancaster and Ithan Avenues to let traffic pass through.

The first vehicle to move through, an 18-wheel truck, gave the students a blast on his air horn as it crunched over the beer cans littering the intersection.

Then it started to rain, and the streets nearly emptied.

Radnor Police Chief John Rutty, a Villanova alumnus, had mixed feelings about the scene. "I like to see the Wildcats win," he said, "but I know the headaches that go with it."

For three high school students on a "college weekend" visit to Villanova, the Connelly Center environment was a thrill to behold.

"The environment is, like, awesome," said Mike Reynolds, a junior at Malvern Preparatory School, not 15 minutes away by car.

Wherever he goes to college, he said, he will make sure it is a good basketball school. For now, he is a big 'Nova fan.

With the game going back and forth, the only emotional rest came during the frequent, long commercials, which were like putting a cork in a bottle of bubbly - or something like that, on this alcohol-free campus.

When Villanova took its first lead in ages with 2 minutes, 12 seconds to go, the room suddenly seemed more full. Students from all over must have come running to the sounds of excitement.

As the final seconds ticked away - and Villanova kept holding a narrow lead - the joy turned into pandemonium.

When Scottie Reynolds broke the last tie score - 76-all - and scored the clincher with less than a second to go, the noise sounded as if the game were being played on campus.

Ellen Kraft, 21, a junior management major from Princeton, said her father, a Villanova graduate of the early 1980s, had wanted the win almost more than she did.

"I still can't believe it," she said. "I still can't believe it."