A deep exhale was heard throughout the Vadalabene Center after Greg Gumbel read “American” and “Mount St. Mary’s” during Selection Sunday, March 16. Everyone there knew it meant that SIUE had been granted a bye through the First Four and guaranteed the Cougars a spot in the 64-team bracket – something no SIUE team had ever come close to doing.
Long before SIUE ever made its first March Madness appearance and before ground had been broken at the sight where Vadalabene Center now stands, SIUE was a Division II college that played its home games at a local high school: Edwardsville High School. Now, Vadalabene Center, filled with screaming fans decked out in Cougar red and hard hats reading “Find a Way” – SIUE’s team culture emphasized by head coach Brian Barone – was broadcasted to living room TVs around the country
When Barone pointed to the crowd to say none of it would be possible without all of them, he wasn’t lying. The entire community of Edwardsville rallied behind SIUE, from the seasoned SIUE alumni to the EHS students enjoying the free donuts offered in the lobby or, like sophomore Lucas Garman, selling raffle tickets for the NIL everyone was there to support the team.
“This past year … my dad and two other alums created the NIL donation called ‘For the E and Me’ and a bunch of my buddies go to every home game,” Garman said. “The community really affects the game and gives the players something to play for. We look forward to every game and so do the players.”
Celebrating the Cougars Ohio Valley Conference championship and inaugural March Madness berth was certainly on the docket for the evening, but the night was about celebrating SIUE and the city of Edwardsville as a whole.
When the moment all those who waited, not just the two hours since the arena had opened, but their entire lives, finally came and Gumbel read the card “SIU-Edwardsville,” it didn’t matter who the Cougars were playing, because Edwardsville had already won.
Underneath the card on the screen read “Wichita, KS,” a mere 6-hour drive from here, nothing a Midwesterner can’t handle. Immediately shouts of “Who’s going to Wichita?” rang from every corner of the arena. Less than 20 hours later, SIUE announced it had sold out its allotment of tickets for the 1 p.m. Thursday game against Houston.
Over 50 million people fill out March Madness brackets every year according to Sports Illustrated, and every one of them will see the name Edwardsville on a national stage, which is one of the biggest things students at EHS reported noting when they learned SIUE made March Madness.
“I think it’s really cool that a city as small as ours has the chance to compete on a national level against a team as big as Houston with the nation watching,” freshman William Lask said. “It will definitely have people Google, ‘Where in the world is SIUE,’ and the result sending them to look into our town.”
Not only did March Madness have people trying to learn about Edwardsville, but according to ESPN, around 3% of its 24 million brackets picked SIUE to come on top in the battle of the Cougars. That means there were hundreds of thousands of people across the country who learned about a small college in Southern Illinois and picked them to win on the biggest national stage.
Freshman Evie Bristow said this was important so people can remember it’s not all about big cities and “that even the little areas can be recognized … and be a big part of society.”
Over half of students at EHS have lived here their whole lives, and over 40% have at least one parent who went to SIUE, according to a survey of 90 EHS students. Seeing Edwardsville on a national stage is “significant to many of the people in town that have started their life in Edwardsville because of SIUE,” sophomore Ady Barnett said.
Despite losing to Houston 78-40, SIUE making the tournament itself was a win for the community, as evidenced by senior Gunnar Schag joking before the tipoff, “It’s cool to get national attention, even if it’s by getting blown out 90-4 at a college basketball game.”