Sunday's sun was patched over by the ominous skies of Monday. All morning, the clouds hung low over the city, pregnant to the bursting point. But the rain held off to allow for one last Butler pep rally.
The players were sequestered, preparing for the game, but thousands streamed into Monument Circle just before noon. Many of the attendees were Butler students, who had been given the day off from classes by university president Bobby Fong and were bused in from campus. Up at the dais, Dr. Fong invoked the state's most famous boyhood resident. He quoted from a Civil War battle letter that Abraham Lincoln wrote to Ulysses S. Grant during the Union's siege of Richmond. "Hold on with a bulldog grip," the letter read. "Chew and choke as much as possible."
"They can win it," Fong added, his voice rising as the crowd cheered. "We can win it. Go Dawgs!"
Then it was Butler athletic director Barry Collier's turn. He took the microphone and gave a rousing pep talk. This speech was interactive. He instructed everybody to turn to the person next to them, and reenact the Brad Stevens-Emerson Kampen back bump from the Bulldogs' postgame celebration after the Kansas State win. Hoosiers tend to be shy about physical contact with strangers, but a lot of people went ahead and did it anyway. Nearly all of them failed to achieve the velocity and hang-time that Stevens and Kampen had, and settled for full-body high-fives.
The cheerleaders cheered. The band played the Butler War Song three times. Then, "Who Let The Dogs Out" by the Baha Men bellowed out over the portable speaker system. It was a decade-old pop song, long past its expiration date. "Who Let The Dogs Out" had recently been voted the third most annoying song of all time in a poll by Rolling Stone magazine. But Butler students and fans sang and clapped and woofed along anyway. On this day of all days, uncool was allowed.
As the afternoon continued, the skies darkened prematurely, an early nightfall. Drumrolls of thunder rattled in the distance, and suddenly they were pealing overhead. A thunderstorm warning was steeply upgraded to a tornado watch. There were tornadoes threatening the city, on this day of all days. It wasn't just the National Championship and the impending end of the season, this felt like the end of the world. It was Judgment Day.
Sheets of water descended on the downtown streets and flooded the Capitol Avenue pedestrian corridor, sending people scattering into corners and underneath awnings. At 4 p.m., the sky turned a sickly pale yellow. Rain turned to hard, pelting hailstones that clung to hair and clothing. Dukes and Butlers, as well as Michigan State and West Virginia supporters who had booked Tuesday flights, crowded into Bracket Town. Soon, there was no room in Bracket Town. Huddled masses congregated beneath a leaky railroad overpass between South and Georgia Streets. In the background, tinny marching band recordings of the Butler War Song and Duke's "Blue and White" played on a continuous loop, emanating from unseen speakers hidden in the bridgework.
For those caught out at the venue, Lucas Oil Stadium offered no shelter. The doors and gates were locked, and there was no way in. There was wailing and gnashing of teeth, with booming, scolding rebukes from on high. The voice was issuing a thou-shalt-not commandment about scalping tickets. Hundreds of people in their wet, cold, fearful misery instinctively moved in close to the brick walls, but those provided no shield against the pounding hail and soaking rain. The walls were far too high. The wind ripped apart umbrellas, sending them flying like broken and twisted tree branches. Overhead, the sky projected a lurid purple-green hue, and was full of torn and stained cotton clouds.
The tornadoes never touched down on Indianapolis. The 70,000-seat stadium was not whisked away to the Land of Oz. By the time the gates opened two hours in advance of tipoff, the precipitation had stopped, and the skies were the color of two-percent milk. But the universe had made its point.