Dave Eanet knows meaning of Northwestern's latest appearance in NCAA Tournament

Northwestern radio voice Dave Eanet began preparing almost a year ago for the Wildcats’ NCAA Tournament game Friday against Florida Atlantic. He just didn’t realize it until Sunday.

Eanet and his wife were visiting Eanet’s father in Florida during the weekend of the Final Four. They were in Pompano Beach, a 15-minute drive on Interstate 95 from FAU’s campus in Boca Raton. A restaurant had set up big screens outside near the beach for patrons to watch the Owls’ play San Diego State in a national semifinal.

On a beautiful 75-degree night, surrounded by FAU fans and alumni, Eanet watched the game and got a good feel for the team that just happened to appear opposite Northwestern on the selection show.

“The team is not much different, really,” Eanet said. “It’s pretty much the same team that went to the Final Four a year ago. They got all their main guys back.”

Eanet will call the East Region game between the ninth-seeded Wildcats and eighth-seeded Owls from the Barclays Center in New York alongside analyst Billy McKinney (11:15 a.m., CBS 2, 720-AM). While FAU will be looking to get past the Final Four after losing last year, Northwestern will be trying to get past the first weekend of the tournament for the first time.

In the meantime, Wildcats fans will revel in the fact their team is making a second consecutive appearance on the Big Dance floor for the first time, which Eanet addressed at the selection-show watch party at Welsh-Ryan Arena.

“This was something that people around here used to dream about doing one time,” Eanet said. “And now we’re doing it on a regular basis. Right after the announcement was made on the selection show, I had a brief word with [coach] Chris Collins, and his comment to me was, ‘You believe this? We’re doing this three times in seven years and back-to-back.’ ”

Eanet can relate. He graduated from Northwestern in 1977, and he has been the basketball radio voice since 1996. The program appeared in its first NCAA Tournament in 2017. He knows what these appearances mean to the school and alumni.

“That got driven home to me in Salt Lake City in 2017,” Eanet said, “and I’ve compared it to what it was like to walk into the Rose Bowl in 1996 and realize how many people had gone through the dark days around the program. It just meant so much to them.”

Eanet said he felt more comfortable calling tournament games in his second go-round, though that might have been partly attributed to having a little more room at his broadcast table in Sacramento. But it takes some cramming to catch up on unfamiliar opponents. If the Wildcats beat FAU, they likely will face defending champion Connecticut, which faces Stetson in the second game in New York.

“UConn’s a little different. They’ve been on TV so much I’ve had the chance to watch them,” Eanet said. “I didn’t know a lot about [second-round opponent] UCLA last year, but I studied up and I watched some tape. Ultimately, the game takes care of itself.”

The Wildcats enter their game without guard Ty Berry, who was lost for the season with a knee injury Feb. 7. He was having a career year, and the team has gone 5-4 without him. CBS analyst and former Villanova coach Jay Wright said he thought Northwestern could’ve challenged for the Big Ten title with Boo Buie, the first unanimous first-team All-Big Ten player in school history, and a healthy Berry.

Eanet pointed to the players who have stepped up in Berry’s absence. Those include Ryan Langborg, who helped Princeton reach the Sweet 16 last season, and Brooks Barnhizer, who was named to the Big Ten All-Defensive team.

But it all starts with Buie, who declared for the NBA Draft last April but said he would return for his senior season in May.

“Boo is a very loyal guy, and I think it was important to him to come back and show that they could do it again,” Eanet said. “That’s a great story. How can you not feel good for a guy like that? A lot of people have said, Billy McKinney had his number retired a couple of weeks ago, and Boo Buie’s going to have his number retired at some point.”

Eanet nostalgic about Ryan Field

The sight is impossible to miss.

Or is it easy to miss because it’s being torn down?

However you look at it, Northwestern’s Ryan Field (or Dyche Stadium, to those of a certain age) is being demolished to make way for a new football stadium scheduled to open for the 2026 season.

Dave Eanet, the radio voice for Wildcats football since 1990, gets nostalgic when he takes it in.

“Seeing the south tower gone when we got back the other day from [the Big Ten Tournament in] Minnesota … ,” Eanet said, his voice trailing off. “It’s funny, I don’t have mixed feelings about the fact it’s being torn down because I’m excited about the new stadium, but I have so many memories of that place.

“It’s a little strange to think that sometime in the very near future that’s going to be briefly a vacant lot. I went to games there as a student. I saw Tony Dorsett [pronounced DOR-sett], he wasn’t even Dorsett [pronounced dor-SETT] yet, running for Pittsburgh there.”

Eanet said he tried to soak in the place at different times last season. After the last home game, he took a picture with his son, Steve — who spots for Eanet on the broadcasts — on the field at the 50-yard line.