Sixth man in the stands

The Dee Events Center was packed with 4,387 by the end of the day, Tuesday, March 9, for the semi-final games of the Big Sky Conference Tournament. From local Weber State University fans, to Colorado, Montana, Idaho, and as far as Oregon, fans cam to WSU to support their various teams.
“It’s an amazing experience; we’re outnumbered but it’s OK,” said Yvette Harriel, mother of Portland State University guard Chris Harriel. “It’s pretty exciting and plus, my son’s a freshman. We traveled all the way out to see it and there are great fans for Weber State too.”
Harriel travels to all of PSU’s games from her home in Las Vegas, Nevada. WSU senior Nick Hansen’s parents also travel from their home in Pocatello, Idaho, to see as many of their son’s games as they can.
“We’ve probably been snowed out one time,” said Nick’s father Randy Hanse. “Even then we can watch it on the computer with Big Sky TV and we’ve really enjoyed being able to do that. We’ve made it to several tournaments; last year we went to the UCLA tournament and this year we went down to Vegas and watched them play there. Sometimes it gets pretty expensive, but it’s a lot of fun.”
Hansen said hosting the tournament adds pressure to the team and fans but he is excited to see it through.
“It’s really exciting,” Hansen said, “it’s fun that they won the Big Sky, it puts a little more pressure on them, makes a lot more pressure for us. We’d like to see them do really well. They’re a great group of individuals, we’re just hoping for the best for them.”
WSU Head Coach Randy Rahe said he is glad the surrounding community, the school and the team have the opportunity to both host and compete in the tournament.
“It’s terrific to be able to host, get the fans out here and get them excited,” Rahe said. “I thought the crowd did a great job tonight. We got in a little bit of a bad way and they willed us on and gave us a lot of energy. It’s great for the community, it’s great for the school and we’re excited we were able to get through that first one and bring back hopefully some more tomorrow night. I think it’s great for the community and the school and our kids love it.”
On Monday, March 8, the night before the semi finals, there had only been approximately 50 tickets sold in the student section on Tuesday night. WSU Athletic Director Jerry Bovee said they were not concerned about pre-game sales and were counting on walk-in fans.
“We suspected that after last year’s experience we’d have a better walk-up crowd and we did have a nice walk-up crowd tonight,” Bovee said. “I was very proud of the students coming out, they were huge tonight, they really affected the game. Picking out one or two plays that they just kind of picked on and you know that’s the kind of stuff that the home court advantage is about. It’s what other schools do that are successful in protecting their home court and I’m very proud of them tonight, very proud.”