Hopeful supporters waited in the third-floor conference room, knowing the night was about more than dancing gophers, knuckle puck time or sacrificing chickens in the locker room.

Nay, this was a chance to cement a legacy in sports movie history … or at least within the hearts and minds of the sports section at central Illinois’ finest student newspaper.

Hearts were broken when the selection committee released its results for The Daily Illini’s March Movie Madness.

Of all the tear-churning speeches, corny montages and game-winning improbabilities that usually seal games in big screen sports classics, the field was cut to 32. The resumes of notable snubs like “Happy Gilmore,” “Any Given Sunday,” “Rookie of the Year” and “Varsity Blues” were called into question. But after much banter, the panel moved on.

As a wrinkly, old Al Pacino once taught us, we clawed for that inch. We looked each other in the eye with full hearts and realized great moments are born from great opportunity, and that’s what we had there that night.

So we tipped off the first round, searching for a Cinderella that might shock the field, storm the court and make Northern Iowa tournament darling Ali Farokhmanesh proud.

The shoe finally fit in the West Region, specifically the San Fernando Valley, Calif., regional, where Danny “Daniel-son” LaRusso swept the leg of middleweight champion Jake La Motta, dispatching of the No. 2 seed in the bracket. Despite eight Academy Award nominations and two golden statues, the star power of “Raging Bull” was out-finessed by the meticulous coaching of Keisuke Miyagi, a Japanese immigrant known for his unorthodox training style in “The Karate Kid.”

Somehow, quite shockingly, Martin Scorsese’s 1980 masterpiece starring Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci (shot artistically in black and white) fell to a movie about an old dude with no friends his age who convinces the neighbor kid to paint his fence for free.

Word of Miyagi’s wax-on-wax-off-infused upset spread to the Midwestern regional, where the Tazmanian Devil and the Toon Squad used a spit shine wax to handily topple “North Dallas Forty” (certainly an at-large head scratcher by the committee).

Quality childhood underdogs toppled acclaimed film favorites throughout the bracket. Against “The Sandlot,” “Pat and Mike” played ball like a girl. The childhood coming-of-age flick punched a near unanimous ticket to the second round, and sandlot team heartthrob “Squints” was seen making out with resident hotty Wendy Peffercorn after the game.

But the day’s toughest first-round matchup came in the South Region, where “D2: The Mighty Ducks” defeated “Caddyshack” on a buzzer-beating-triple-deke layup (probably a travel, but the refs held their whistles). Things got heated. On the one hand, you have one of the greatest and most quotable sports comedies of all time. You’ve got Bill Murray at his finest (“So we finish the 18th and he’s going to stiff me. And I say, ‘Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know?’”), Chevy Chase as a zen master golfer, Rodney Dangerfield essentially working his stand-up routine the entire movie and the perfect sports villain in the judge.

Even as a No. 5 seed, “Caddyshack” appeared primed for at least an Elite Eight run. “Rocky” held the No. 1 seed in the same region, a defeatable opponent given its superior sequels (the “Hearts on Fire” montage in “Rocky IV” could be the single most entertaining four minutes of any sports movie, and Ivan Drago’s “I must break you” line is one of the best pre-match speeches).

Then Daily Illini staff writer Kyle Milnamow quieted the panel. He sat at the end of the oval conference table wearing his green Charlie Conway shirt his mother bought him for Christmas. His face was a deep red. Something was bottled inside him. You could almost hear the whispers. “Make a move, Conway. Make a move.”

Milnamow let it out.

“What other movie could make you hate Iceland for absolutely no reason?!”

“D2” was nearly unanimously voted through to the second round.

So we got that going for us. We’re making history.

Ethan can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @AsOfTheSky.