Final Four Crowd Roars During Patriotic, Pre-Game Moment – Opinion

As part of a yearly, March Madness tradition, all four of the NCAA men’s college basketball teams competing in the final round were represented on the court before gameplay started on Saturday afternoon. From Saturday to Monday, the tournament’s final round will be played at Caesars Superdome, New Orleans. It features the University of North Carolina teams, Villanova University, Duke University and the University of Kansas.

It’s traditional for students from the participating schools to perform our national anthem together, as a show of good sportsmanship in advance. The coolest part is the fact that every singer is also a student-athlete.

Villanova was the swimmer.

Charlie Hinckley @novaswimmingAssisting student-athletes of the other three participating schools in singing the National Anthem at Final Four 👀✌️#GoNova #MFinalFour pic.twitter.com/qMia8u6PXL

— Villanova Athletics (@NovaAthletics) April 2, 2022

UNC had one of their football players, seen here with the school’s director of athletics, Bubba Cunningham.

Kaimon Rucker does a fantastic job⁦@UNCFootball⁩Singing the National anthem during the #Final4Head. pic.twitter.com/GFyj8LQ8vP

— Bubba Cunningham (@BubbaUNC) April 2, 2022

Duke had one of its women’s soccer players.

S/O @DukeWSOCSenior Delaney Graham

As a student-athlete from UNC, Villanova, and KU, I performed the anthem. pic.twitter.com/gvpn0IBNYx

— Duke Men’s Basketball (@DukeMBB) April 2, 2022

Kansas even had a member of the foursome who was a professional golfer.

Get to know Hanna Hawks, a sophomore on the KU women’s golf team, who just represented the Jayhawks in a quartet of student-athletes that performed the national anthem at the Final Four. https://t.co/ldYi0j2Fgn

— The Kansas City Star (@KCStar) April 2, 2022

But on Saturday, as the students sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” something special happened (at about the :45 mark in the video below), while broadcasting on the big screens inside the arena, that caused the crowd to loudly roar.

The beautiful National Anthem was composed by four student-athletes. #FinalFour schools pic.twitter.com/fVv6ZWzUII

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) April 2, 2022

This was an inspiring moment filled with patriotic pride. And there was another positive sign — no one was kneeling at any point.