I went to high school with Villanova guard Scottie Reynolds. It went down to the wire whether I would attend Drexel University or Virginia Commonwealth for college, ultimately opting for Drexel.

I work less than a mile away from the Wachovia Center. Getting tickets to session two at the Wachovia Center was a no brainer.

Even more fortunately for me, some of my friends from VCU were driving up and had an extra ticket and offered it to me if I bought them some cheesesteaks. After work, I ran up to Geno's and met them at the game.

Now, for many, donning a t-shirt of a conference rival and sitting with a group of their fans would seem freakish and unnatural. However, for me, it just felt right. I'd much rather see a team I followed through the CAA for the past few seasons than UCLA.

As an added bonus, I had already heard many of their chants, so it wasn't hard to catch on.

The Villanova game came and passed. The 'Nova fans were quiet for much of the first half, but as the Wildcats got rolling they showed why it was a home-court advantage. My fellow Herndon alumnus struggled, as Scottie finished with single-digit points.

But Villanova prevailed over American, and many Wildcat fans called it a night and left after the first game.

The UCLA fans were limited by clearly die-hards. A little over a section of the stadium was filled with powder blue who had ventured from the far coast. But the VCU fans had them outnumbered three-to-one, and it showed.

As game two started, the VCU fans were louder and rowdier, and for the first 15 minutes the game was close. After VCU tied the game at 23 with 4:58 left in the first half, UCLA pulled away for a 35-25 lead at the half.

The rim was not a fan of the Rams in the first half, as shot after shot bounced out. VCU only shot 32 percent from the floor and couldn't generate anything off the offensive glass. They were lucky to only be down by 10 going into halftime.

Before the game, my friends had reinforced something that I already well knew. VCU is a second-half team. Eric Maynor, the only senior on the team and the player who hit the winning shot to upset Duke two years ago, has a tendency to take over games in the clutch.

He lights on fire in the second half, and brings the rest of the team with him.

Even down by 10 to a team that has more national titles than VCU has tournament appearances, Maynor and the Rams couldn't be counted out.

The second half started with VCU slowly chewing away at the Bruins' lead. Maynor made a jumper four minutes it that cut it down to 39-34. After a few minutes of back and forth play, UCLA pulled ahead. Jrue Holiday scored six consecutive points to give the Bruins an 11-point lead with eight minutes to play.

Many of the Villanova fans who had stuck around began to file out of the arena. To everyone but the Rams faithful, the game appeared over.

It didn't help that VCU had missed on the first shot of 1+1 free throws three times in a row either.

With four minutes left, UCLA still led by nine. Then it happened.

Eric Maynor drained a three-pointer, cutting the lead to six. Just 25 seconds later, 5'10" sophomore guard Joey Rodriguez nailed another three-pointer. It was a one-possession game with three-and-a-half minutes left.

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