CLEVELAND - Five hundred UB students, a writhing blue and white mass, packed two sections of the upper deck Thursday at Cleveland's Gund Arena.
The crowd of students stood for the whole game, cheering the Bulls' players by name and raining off-color chants on referees and Toledo Rockets.
The students set the tone in the minutes before the game, when the Rockets' cheerleaders ran onto the court. They were joined by the team's mascot, a man dressed in navy blue and gold astronaut suit and helmet.
"Pow-er Ran-gers! Pow-er Ran-gers!" yelled the crowd.
The cheerleaders began their routine, and the jeering got louder.
"Ug-ly cheer-leaders! Ug-ly cheer-leaders!"
Both teams shot well in the first 10 minutes, sending the student section into an early frenzy. But the game soon slowed, and became a physical battle.
Tension in the section grew. When Toledo star Keith Triplett tackled Turner Battle to the floor, earning a technical foul, the students unleashed a particularly ruthless chant for Triplett, who was arrested in May on a charge of criminal damaging for allegedly slashing two tires on a Toledo man's car.
"Convic-ted fel-on! Convic-ted fel-on!"
Among the students who led the cheers was Ken Palczyk, a senior mechanical engineering major who brandished a four foot high blown-up photo, mounted on a wooden stick, of Coach Reggie Witherspoon's face.
"I made this thing for the last game, against Northern Illinois," Palczyk said. "Now I'm bringing it with me to every game."
Nearly everyone in the section was missing at least one class, including sophomore math major Kyle LeRoy.
"I'm missing two classes: Differential Equations and Rock Music," he said.
Are his teachers OK with him skipping class to see the game?
"Not really," he said. "But I had someone hand in my homework."
On the lower deck, a happy crowd of adult fans spread out over three sections, a genteel contrast to the tumult of the student section above. In this crowd was Kurt Lang, a Buffalo resident who played for the Bulls from 1953 to 1956.
"We had some great teams. We were 17-3 in my senior year. But this team is vastly superior," Lang said. "Our center was 6-5, and he was a phenom. Their smallest guy now was our biggest guy then."
From the front row of the lower deck, a few rows below Lang, two girls' voices, young but loud, carried out over press row and onto the court.
"Hey, ref! You want to borrow my glasses?"
"Hey, ref! Why do you get paid for doing a bad job?"
"Ref! You got no conscience!"
They were the voices of Lydia Witherspoon, 12, and her sister Rachel. The two girls made the trip on the team bus with their dad, the Bulls' coach.
It was Rachel's 11th birthday. She said she hoped that meant good luck for the team.
"We didn't win last year, but (last year) the game was on the day before my birthday," she said.
With eight minutes to go, The Bulls led by 14. In the student section, the fans smelled Toledo's blood, and the cheers mounted.
With two minutes left on the clock: "Go home Rock-ets! Go home Rock-ets!"
With one minute left: "Na na na na! Na na na na! Hey hey hey! Good-bye!"
With seconds left, Lydia and Rachel began singing, "Home, home on the range!"
And when the clock expired on the Bulls' 85-72 win, one fan in the lower deck had been won over.
President Simpson, who was not a basketball fan before he came to UB, said he enjoyed the game so much that he plans to come to every game the Bulls play for the rest of the tournament.
"The game is terrific. It's great. They really look great," Simpson said. "It's really nice to see so many students come down, too. The team appreciates their support."
But what about all the off-color chants?
"Well, I might not cheer that way myself," he said with a professorial chuckle. "But I appreciate the enthusiasm."
