{"id":9187,"date":"2010-01-19T12:03:01","date_gmt":"2010-01-19T16:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=9187"},"modified":"2011-05-31T12:41:45","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T16:41:45","slug":"espn-college-gameday-held-at-gampel-pavilion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2010\/01\/espn-college-gameday-held-at-gampel-pavilion\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN College GameDay Held at Gampel Pavilion"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>The<\/a>
The first ESPN College GameDay for a women's basketball game was broadcast from Gampel Pavilion on Jan. 16. Photos by Peter Morenus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At a time when students are generally sleeping on a Saturday morning, former coach-turned-television analyst Digger Phelps is working the crowd of 3,000 UConn students and fans who have streamed into Harry A. Gampel Pavilion since 7:30 a.m. to be part of the first ESPN College GameDay centered around a women\u2019s college basketball game \u2013 a Big East match-up between No. 1 UConn and No. 3 Notre Dame.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no school since UCLA that has the tradition in men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball like Connecticut,\u201d says Phelps. \u201cI need your three best student cheers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phelps hands the microphone to Navid Sharifi, a senior accounting major who spent the night outside Gampel Pavilion and was the first student in line, so he could lead the familiar UConn Huskies cheer that ends in a loud \u201cWoof!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBe loud!\u201d says Phelps, after approving of the cheers. \u201cIt\u2019s your show! Let\u2019s get it done!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"<p>ESPN's<\/a>
ESPN's Rece Davis, left, interviews Coach Geno Auriemma.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By the time the camera went on for the 10 a.m. national broadcast, the crowd sitting behind the ESPN GameDay desk was in a frenzy, helping the leading sports network to kick off its sixth year of basketball College GameDay. Many held up hand-made signs or giant head posters of the Husky players, and there was even an appearance of the ubiquitous life-size cutout of University President Michael Hogan.<\/p>\n

\u201cTen years ago, if you said the GameDay crew would be in Storrs, you would think automatically it would be for our guys playing Georgetown or Syracuse,\u201d said women\u2019s basketball head coach Geno Auriemma. \u201cTo have them here today is such an incredible step for women\u2019s basketball. It\u2019s more about women\u2019s basketball than it is about the University of Connecticut. We just happen to be the conduit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Members of the women\u2019s basketball team also joined their fellow students by fully participating in the cheering and dancing encouraged by the television cameras before the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re loving it,\u201d said All-American forward Maya Moore. \u201cWe\u2019re excited so many people showed up. I was having so much fun. I didn\u2019t know what to expect because of our break, but everybody moved back in on campus to show up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"<p>Student<\/a>
Forward Kaili McLaren, wearing a blue jersey, joins student fans displaying giant head posters of the Husky players.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Residence halls on campus opened earlier than usual for the spring semester to enable students to be on campus to support the top-ranked Huskies for both the morning event and the game. The GameDay also was promoted by ESPN, which provided video clips for Gampel and XL Center games featuring its top broadcasters who would arrive in Storrs \u2013 Phelps, Rece Davis, Jay Bilas, and Hubert Davis. The network\u2019s top college basketball announcing team of Dan Shulman and Dick Vitale, joined by women\u2019s basketball analyst Doris Burke, called the game.<\/p>\n

Burke, who also broadcasts NBA contests, said she appreciated the historic nature of the first women\u2019s College GameDay event.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s two times I\u2019ve been moved to the verge of tears before a game,\u201d she said: \u201cThe first WNBA game I called between New York and Los Angles, and today. It was such a pivotal moment in our game\u2019s history. You could feel the energy in the building. These fans are genuinely excited to be here. I had to blink back tears.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"<p>Jonathan<\/a>
Jonathan the Husky Dog cheers along with student fans.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first ever College GameDay for basketball also took place in Gampel Pavilion in 2005, the year after UConn made history by becoming the only university to win both the men\u2019s and women\u2019s NCAA championships in the same season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s an incredible statement about the University and the basketball program when ESPN initiates the first basketball GameDay for men here, and then comes back and initiates the first women\u2019s basketball GameDay on our campus,\u201d said UConn director of athletics Jeffrey Hathaway. \u201cIt also says a lot about our students and the fans we have at our University.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand where we fit within the University community, but at the same time we believe we can be the front porch, and expose people to the University of Connecticut who may not know it in any other way,” Hathaway added. “If they learn about all the great things we have at the University through an athletic event, then it\u2019s positive. The exposure is immeasurable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"<p>A<\/a>
A fisheye lens view of the women's basketball game vs. Notre Dame at Gampel Pavilion.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Auriemma said that as he prepared to walk out on the court to be interviewed on camera, he paused in the tunnel leading to the floor, listening to the intensity of the crowd. He thought back to his early days, before the national championship banners and sold-out crowds like that for the Notre Dame game.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwenty-five years ago when I took the job here at Connecticut \u2026 There are more people working for ESPN here today than there were at our games then,\u201d he said. \u201cTo see this happening, you can\u2019t fathom that it\u2019s come to that.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t deny when this [ESPN] crew comes in, college kids want to be a part of it,\u201d Auriemma added. \u201cThe energy level this early in the morning on a Saturday, when school doesn\u2019t start until Tuesday \u2013 they didn\u2019t have to come back and they did. I couldn\u2019t be happier.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Huskies won, 70-46.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first ESPN College GameDay broadcast for a women’s basketball game was held in Storrs on Jan. 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[55],"class_list":["post-9187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 11:55:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9187"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37390,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9187\/revisions\/37390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9187"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=9187"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}