He was one of the 72,000 people at U.S. Bank Stadium during last year's Final Four, but Brad Soderberg might have had the best seat in the house.
A Virginia assistant coach and Wisconsin native, Soderberg sat directly behind Cavaliers coach Tony Bennett during the waning seconds of the NCAA championship game, an 85-77 overtime thriller over Texas Tech.
Hours after the nets were cut and the confetti fell, the Cavaliers' party was just beginning. Soderberg vividly recalls the emotional postgame locker room celebration and the police escort back to the team's headquarters at the Marquette Hotel.
"Who would ever have thought I'd get the opportunity to be in that setting?" Soderberg said in a phone interview this week.
This year's Final Four was slated to begin Saturday in Atlanta before the coronavirus pandemic hit, and now college basketball fans everywhere are left clinging to their memories. The flashbacks from Minneapolis are especially sweet for Virginia.
Soderberg, 57, will never forget what it was like celebrating Virginia's first NCAA men's basketball championship — and a year of redemption — surrounded by loved ones from Wausau, Wis., including his late father.
Just getting back to the Marquette Hotel was an adventure, as delirious fans decked in blue and orange were overflowing outside the door, waiting for the team's bus.
The police helped whisk the players and coaches inside. With fans holding cellphones in the air, record buttons pressed, Soderberg entered the lobby grinning ear-to-ear, still dressed in his tie and dark gameday suit.