I’ve spent the last few weeks floating on air. See, I’ve been a die-hard basketball fan since birth. During elementary school, I was the only girl on the boys basketball team and when I was 12, I wrote a letter about the 1996 Team USA women’s team that got published in The New York Times Magazine<\/em>. In 2010, I even acted alongside Sam Rockwell <\/strong>and Emma Roberts<\/strong><\/a> in The Winning Season<\/em>\u2014a movie about a high school girls’ basketball team.<\/p>\n So when I got an email inviting me to the 2026 Final Four on behalf of Samsung, I was floating on air\u2014and the family group chat was on fire. Two flights and two Ubers later, I found myself in downtown Indianapolis with tickets for every game, a brand new smartphone and an exciting itinerary. From celebrity sightings and concerts to courtside moments and meals, here are my top highlights and biggest takeaways.<\/p>\n One of my biggest\u2014and most immediate\u2014realizations was that you don’t need to purchase actual tickets to the games to have an incredible Final Four weekend. That’s because it’s absolutely packed with free concerts and activations. Between Friday<\/a> and Sunday<\/a>, I got to see Post Malone<\/strong><\/a>, Megan Moroney<\/strong><\/a> and Dan + Shay<\/strong> concerts for FREE.<\/p>\n On Friday night, we attended Capital One’s Madness After Dark event. As soon as I walked in, I saw Charles Barkley<\/strong><\/a> just hanging out and taking pictures with fans. We arrived at the ballroom just in time for Dan + Shay’s<\/strong> performance and since my cousins are huge fans of the duo, I used the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra to record this clip of their hit, “How Not To.”<\/p>\n Besides the free concerts, there were also tons of free events and activations\u2014including ferris wheels, light shows and photo ops. The Final Four Fan Fest was definitely a highlight\u2014I felt like I was walking into a theme park! There was an entire basketball court to shoot around on, a home run derby game, football competition\u2014even a salon pop-up doing free haircuts! Plus, there were celebrity appearances, tons of merch and a cornucopia of free samples that would make any Costco<\/a> aficionado shed a tear. I could have spent an entire day there, but we had a game to get to!<\/p>\n When the Samsung team told us we’d be going on a tour of Lucas Oil Stadium, I thought it sounded cool, but had absolutely zero idea that it would include walking onto the court and<\/em> shooting hoops! My inner child\u2014and let’s face it current adult\u2014was so geeked out I threw my bag to the side without taking any photos or videos. Thankfully, someone got this pic at the very end and the S26 Ultra’s wide-angle lens did not disappoint.<\/p>\n I’m on the bottom right with my new Final Four friends!<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n And even better? Someone happened to catch my finger roll on camera! I immediately sent it to at least a dozen contacts:<\/p>\n Related: <\/strong>NBA Announcer\u2019s Final Broadcast on ESPN After 36 Years Revealed<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n During the first game\u2014UConn vs. Illinois, I caught Bill Murray<\/strong><\/a> cheering on the jumbotron (his son, Luke Murray<\/strong>, was a longtime assistant coach at UConn, but next season, he’ll be head coach at Boston College.)<\/p>\n We were in the Samsung suite, which made me feel fancy, but the suites were located higher up in the venue. What’s wild is that my footage makes it look like I had floor seats!<\/p>\n I also spotted Simone Biles<\/strong><\/a> and her husband Jonathan Owens<\/strong><\/a>\u2014sans security\u2014heading into the bowl before the second game tipped off. Not a big surprise considering the NFL star just signed a one-year contract with the Indianapolis Colts.<\/p>\n We also got a performance from The Chainsmokers <\/strong>in between games. And in the suite next to ours? Dave Portnoy <\/strong>and the Barstool Sports team having just as much fun as you’d expect. (During the second game, my sister<\/a> texted me and said I was in the background of Portnoy’s Instagram stories!)<\/p>\n Related: <\/strong>Simone Biles Is Celebrating 29 in the Best Way\u2014and Her Bikini Photos Prove It<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Okay, so I have to apologize to any Indiana resident who’s reading this. Perhaps because my mind was fully on basketball, I wasn’t even thinking about the local food scene. That all ended on Saturday<\/a>, when we skipped the outdoor activations due to the wind and rain. Instead, we had brunch at The Fountain Room<\/a>, where I devoured the best biscuits<\/a> and gravy<\/a> I’ve ever had. They were so mesmerizing, I dug right in without taking an obligatory food pic\u2014and only had the aftermath to show for it:<\/p>\n But then someone mentioned that the Galaxy S26 Ultra has an AI-powered feature called Photo Assist, which lets you adjust the image without leaving the photo app. I asked it to show what my plate looked like before I took my first bite and here’s what it served up:<\/p>\n What the heck! Another cool feature on this smartphone is its built-in Privacy Display. When you turn it on, anyone looking at your phone sees nothing\u2014just a dark, unreadable screen. But for you, looking straight on, everything looks completely normal. You can even set it to automatically activate when you open specific apps, like banking or messaging.<\/p>\n Back to the food: I also ate at St. Elmo Steakhouse<\/a>\u2014the legendary James Beard<\/strong> Award-winning institution that’s been visited by multiple American Presidents\u2014including George W. Bush<\/strong>, Ronald Reagan<\/strong> and Jimmy Carter<\/strong><\/a>. Celebrities like Michael Douglas<\/strong><\/a>,John Travolta<\/strong>, Jon Hamm<\/strong> and Rob Lowe <\/strong>have all dined here, too, and I can see why. The restaurant has been around since 1902 and their horseradish-packed cocktail sauce is just as iconic as the legends who’ve dined there. I definitely gagged a little\u2014but the shrimps were as big as my hand and the ribeye was elite. I wish I had video of me tasting it, but it looked just like this!<\/p>\n After such an incredible weekend, I was absolutely exhausted when I arrived at the airport for my flight home. I had about 20 minutes to grab a quick bite and sat down at a restaurant close to my gate. The girls next to me said the fries were delicious and came with multiple sauces, so as a dip connoisseur, I was all in.<\/p>\n A few minutes after placing my otder, the waiter brought out my fresh hot fries\u2014paired with four different dips\u2014and I heard a group of people nearby comment on how good they looked. “She’ll never know,” a familiar voice whispered\u2014loud enough for me to hear, of course. I moved my plate towards them and said, “Help yourselves\u2014seriously! My flight’s boarding soon and there’s no way I can eat all of these.”<\/p>\n Suddenly, I was face-to-face with Bill Murray, who thanked me, grabbed a fry and asked about each sauce. He complimented my bags of souvenirs\u2014including the giant Samsung Final Four pillow\u2014which I told him were for my niece and nephew. And then he told me I was a great American.<\/p>\n After an enjoyable chit chat that included takes on the difference between beer<\/a>cheese<\/a> and nacho cheese, and how Indiana makes some of the best popcorn<\/a>, it was time for me to board my flight and we said our goodbyes. (I realized the others in the group\u2014the ones I’d interacted with first\u2014were his adult children.) I’m a massive Bill Murray fan, so it was the perfect ending to the perfect weekend that I didn’t want to ruin by asking for a photo. But if you ever find yourself in Concourse B at the Indianapolis Airport, know that the fries at Sun<\/a> King Brewery are Bill Murray-approved\u2014and that the legend himself flies Southwest Airlines.<\/p>\n Related: Up Next:<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n This story was originally published by <\/em>Parade<\/em><\/a> on May 9, 2026, where it first appeared in the <\/em>Entertainment<\/em><\/a> section. Add Parade as a <\/em>Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.aol.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve spent the last few weeks floating on air. See, I’ve been a die-hard basketball fan since birth. During elementary school, I was the only girl on the boys basketball team and when I was 12, I wrote a letter about the 1996 Team USA women’s team that got published in The New York Times […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2409431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[461312,345616,430075,374811,453696,345338,310493,341447,471179,325211,51068,421157,406822],"class_list":["post-2409430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-basketball-court","tag-bill-murray","tag-charles-barkley","tag-dave-portnoy","tag-elementary-school","tag-emma-roberts","tag-indianapolis","tag-indianapolis-colts","tag-luke-murray","tag-megan-moroney","tag-sam-rockwell","tag-samsung","tag-simone-biles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Yes-I-Shared-Fries-with-Bill-Murray-at-the-Indianapolis.com2Fen2Faol_parade_7442F827a3841767bc295d28b5a0e2a3292e0.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2409430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2409432,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409430\/revisions\/2409432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2409431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2409430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2409430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2409430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}1. You Don’t Need Tickets To the Game<\/h2>\n
2. Playing on the Final Four Court Was a Dream<\/h2>\n
3. Celebrity Sightings at the Semifinals<\/h2>\n
4. The Indianapolis Food Scene Surprised Me<\/h2>\n
<\/div>
<\/div>
5. The Grand Finale: Sharing French Fries With Bill Murray<\/h2>\n