If you planned on getting a table at the popular restaurant Double Dogs on Thursday night, you had better have called ahead of time and made reservations.

Or you could have just showed up at around 3:30 p.m. like Bowling Green junior Shane Bearden and his group of friends.

“I had a blast,” he said. “We had Double Dogs rockin’ with the students in there. We got the entire crowd cheering. It was great.”

At 8 p.m., more than an hour from tip off, the wait for a table was more than the stewardess wanted to imagine.

Needless to say, there were plenty of Western fans in attendance for the Toppers’ 76-72 win over Illinois in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

There were so many people in the restaurant that new ways were invented for the waitresses to get from the kitchen and bar to their tables.

But the cooks didn’t have it all that bad. In fact after the majority of the crowd settled in by half-time Louisville senior Dane Rodriguez, a cook at Double Dogs, was able to watch most of the game from the back.

“On our part, we chilled,” Rodriguez said. “We actually got to watch the second half. But the servers, I would not want to have been in their shoes. It was crazy. You couldn’t move.”

The fan reaction for the last few moments of the game went from expectations of victory to the doubts of loosing and ended in a raucous cheer.

Paris, Ky., senior John Ricker’s, who brought his backpack along so he could study for a test he was taking the next day. After a questionable call late in the second half, Ricker’s friend sent him a text message saying how the blown call might have done the Toppers in.

“I was like, yeah we might have,” Ricker said. “But we kept our composure and didn’t really let it get to us. Even though we had like seven turnovers in three minutes.”

Bearden said, that he believed that Sophomore forward Sergio Kerusch had the biggest impact on the Toppers’ win.

“He was a beast tonight on the boards,” Bearden said. “He had a monster dunk that got everybody into the game. He got the players excited. I mean he just played a great, great game.”

Bearden plans on being at Double Dogs again on Saturday when the Toppers play Gonzaga in the second round.

But be forewarned, Bearden is still contemplating whether he will wash his clothes, which he plans on wearing in order to keep the luck going, in between games.

For more on Western’s victory, check the Herald’s NCAA: The Experience special section