Penn men's basketball team hopes to carry momentum into NCAA Tournament vs. No. 3 seed Illinois

The last time the University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team won a game in the NCAA Tournament, not a single current player was born.

It happened in 1994, when the Quakers beat Nebraska. On Thursday, they'll get another crack at a team from the Midwest.

Penn snapped an eight-year tournament drought with a theatrical overtime win in the Ivy League tournament. It's that momentum they'll look to carry into the field of 64 vs. the University of Illinois.

The No. 14 seed Quakers will play No. 13 seed Illinois in Greenville, South Carolina, and many players haven't experienced an atmosphere like the NCAA Tournament. 

"The press conferences are different," Penn head coach Fran McCaffery said Tuesday as the team got a big send-off on campus. "The attention's different. The practices will be full of people."

The Quakers bring good momentum into the tournament, winning nine of their last 10, including an overtime thriller to beat Yale in the Ivy League championship.

"The teams that are hot right now are the ones that can maybe do some damage in the NCAA Tournament," McCaffery said. 

McCaffery should know. Penn is the fifth team he'll lead to the NCAA tournament, and he's the fifth coach in history to accomplish the milestone. But getting there with his alma mater in just his first season means a lot. 

"That's really special," McCaffery said. "Now, we went when I was a player. And now as a coach. And when I came back, that was the goal for me, my staff, for the administration, for the fanbase, for the students. And the players just really embraced that opportunity. There's no better feeling as a coach to watch them celebrate as they did on Sunday."

Penn's return to March Madness has campus buzzing.

"I think it's going to be close, but I think Penn is going to win," Eric Zuckerman, a senior at Penn, said.

"They're going in level-set, confident, as they should," Eden Wright, another senior at Penn, said. "They worked just as hard to be there as Illinois did."