BleedGopher
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per USA Today:
It almost doesn’t make sense. The Grand Canyon University Antelopes have nothing to play for. They can’t make the NCAA Tournament. They can’t even play in the WAC Tournament. Yet there are 3,000 students lined up two hours before game time, dancing to music from a DJ and chugging the 16-ounce sodas provided by Mountain Dew reps. All for a February basketball game against New Mexico State.
This is GCU, a 19,500-student private Christian university in Phoenix. The school is in its fourth and final year of a probationary transition to Division I, meaning its athletic programs are barred from postseason play until next school year.
Nobody at the sold-out GCU Arena — where students fill nearly half of the 7,000 seats — seems to care. It’s a whiteout, but this student section does not stick to T-shirts. There’s an entire row of fans wearing white hazmat suits, another fan wearing an inflatable swan around his waist. They all have cut-outs of Betty White’s face (Get it? White out.)
“It’s gonna be lit,” one of the hazmat suit bros says.
GCU is an anomaly in college basketball. While top basketball programs like Kansas, Duke and Kentucky have rabid fanbases and raucous atmospheres forged on decades of tradition, GCU has matched those blue bloods in three seasons simply by being different.
Remarkably, through a vision from school President Brian Mueller, GCU created college basketball’s rowdiest secret with stunning quickness. It’s a secret that they can’t wait to get out. GCU is home to possibly the best student section in college basketball, and it was built from scratch.
“If you think about when you go on the road to some of the bigger schools, and they have established traditions, a lot of the programming is for the people who are buying tickets,” Mueller said. “We did the opposite.”
The atmosphere at the arena caters almost entirely to students, who are encouraged to party outside until just before game time. Even though the Lopes have a big-name coach — former Sun’s star Dan Majerle — and should compete for an NCAA Tournament bid right away, the institutional focus has been getting students in the building regardless of their interest in basketball.
Duke has the Cameron Crazies. Kansas has the Phog.
GCU has the Havocs.
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/02/gra...tball-best-student-section-havocs-dan-majerle
Go Gophers!!
It almost doesn’t make sense. The Grand Canyon University Antelopes have nothing to play for. They can’t make the NCAA Tournament. They can’t even play in the WAC Tournament. Yet there are 3,000 students lined up two hours before game time, dancing to music from a DJ and chugging the 16-ounce sodas provided by Mountain Dew reps. All for a February basketball game against New Mexico State.
This is GCU, a 19,500-student private Christian university in Phoenix. The school is in its fourth and final year of a probationary transition to Division I, meaning its athletic programs are barred from postseason play until next school year.
Nobody at the sold-out GCU Arena — where students fill nearly half of the 7,000 seats — seems to care. It’s a whiteout, but this student section does not stick to T-shirts. There’s an entire row of fans wearing white hazmat suits, another fan wearing an inflatable swan around his waist. They all have cut-outs of Betty White’s face (Get it? White out.)
“It’s gonna be lit,” one of the hazmat suit bros says.
GCU is an anomaly in college basketball. While top basketball programs like Kansas, Duke and Kentucky have rabid fanbases and raucous atmospheres forged on decades of tradition, GCU has matched those blue bloods in three seasons simply by being different.
Remarkably, through a vision from school President Brian Mueller, GCU created college basketball’s rowdiest secret with stunning quickness. It’s a secret that they can’t wait to get out. GCU is home to possibly the best student section in college basketball, and it was built from scratch.
“If you think about when you go on the road to some of the bigger schools, and they have established traditions, a lot of the programming is for the people who are buying tickets,” Mueller said. “We did the opposite.”
The atmosphere at the arena caters almost entirely to students, who are encouraged to party outside until just before game time. Even though the Lopes have a big-name coach — former Sun’s star Dan Majerle — and should compete for an NCAA Tournament bid right away, the institutional focus has been getting students in the building regardless of their interest in basketball.
Duke has the Cameron Crazies. Kansas has the Phog.
GCU has the Havocs.
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/02/gra...tball-best-student-section-havocs-dan-majerle
Go Gophers!!
