Small School With Mighty Fan Base Enjoys Travelling To See Its Hoopsters In Vegas
By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
The college basketball teams and their fans have begun flowing into Las Vegas for no less than four conference tournaments this week.
And there’s one red-and-blue-clad fan base that takes over Orleans Arena every time the West Coast Conference shows up for its tourney at the 8,000-seat, off-Strip arena along Tropicana Avenue.
As usual, the Gonzaga Bulldogs, a college basketball 7,000-student powerhouse from Spokane, Washington, has a place in the West Coast championship game Tuesday evening after wiping out the University of San Francisco Monday. LVSportsBiz.com noticed a trait among the Gonzaga fans as their team was demolishing San Francisco by 26 points with a mere four minutes left in the contest.
Fans were laser-focused on the squad in the last few minutes even though it was crystal-clear their beloved Zags were going to win the game handily and even easily cover the points. Final score: Zags 88, USF 60. Gonzaga moves on to play its 21st consecutive WCC championship game Tuesday evening.
“They’re very, very passionate,” an Orleans Arena usher observed after the Gonzaga victory tonight.
Or as Gonzaga dance team member Priya Tanden explained of the fans’ thorough 40-minute total game rooting, “You want to support them to the very end.”
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Indeed these Gonzaga fans are committed. The team that made it to the NCAA basketball title game last year before losing to national hoops brand North Carolina plays in a Spokane gym of only 6,000 seats. But the Orleans Arena, one of Las Vegas’ nicer mid-size arenas at 8,000 seats or so, was easily packed with Zags fans.
About 400 Gonzaga students are in town and staying at MGM Grand, while hundreds of more alums, kids of alums and fans are roaming the Strip and walkways of the Orleans casino-hotel.
“It’s all about the tradition,” Gonzaga senior Ryan McCandless said after his school beat San Francisco.
Added fellow senior Dylan Biagi, “It’s the best thing Gonzaga has to offer.”
Those fans are spending tourist dollars in a tourism economy that started 2018 below January 2017 tourist and gambling numbers.
It’s a small university at 7,000 students. Yet, the school will be appearing in the national college basketball tournament for the 20th straight season when the brackets are announced in a few days.
I wandered into the Gonzaga post-game press conference and I wonder how sports writers coax in-depth or insightful comments from coaches and players after listening to a few quips from Gonzaga Coach Mark Few and a couple of players.
A Gonzaga player, Josh Perkins, mentioned, “We just love playing basketball.” among his observations.
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And I asked the players what they thought about their fans still so focused on the game when their team is demolishing San Francisco with a few minutes to go.
“We have the best fans in the country,” said Gonzaga player Killian Tillie, a 6-foot, 10-inch Frenchman. “They always cheer for us.” (A news crew from Japan was at Orleans Arena to cover another foreign Gonzaga player, Rui Hachimura, who is a 6-foot, eight-inch Beninese-Japanese hoopster.)
Zags fan Adam Carpenter, who came with family and friends who donned red and blue wigs for the game, said the Zags crowd in Las Vegas and attention to every play right to the end was part of the fans’ “hometown mentality.”
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