While the Penn men’s basketball team started official practices at the Palestra on Oct. 15, this weekend, all 18 players — along with a few hundred fans — got intimate with the Cathedral of College Basketball.
In the traditional start to the season, students slept over at the Palestra Friday night for the opportunity to buy student section season tickets. But for the first time, the entire men’s team slept over too, at the request of coach Jerome Allen.
“If they can be here and sleep with us,” freshman guard Miles Cartwright said of the fans, “the least we can do is be here with them.”
Fans, most of whom were freshmen, brought air mattresses, sleeping bags and pillows, and spread around the concourse. Before people went to bed around 2 a.m., the Red and Blue Crew organized contests and a popular dodgeball tournament with students, coaches and players from the men’s and women’s basketball teams.
“I wish we had a better turnout, but it’s been a lot of fun,” Cartwright said.
Junior point guard and co-captain Zack Rosen said the move toward more interaction between players and fans has been a great change in recent years.
“This probably wouldn’t happen at a larger Division I school,” College freshman Ben Guziksaid. “It makes the fans feel like they are a part of the team.”
Rosen said he hopes this year’s freshmen will feel a stronger connection and continue to come back to the Palestra as upperclassmen, bringing back the charged atmosphere that Allen saw in the ’90s as a player.
“It’s second to none,” Rosen said of the sixth-man atmosphere.
While Rosen is working to bring fans back to his home court, several attendees echoed Cartwright’s sentiments about attendance at The Line.
“While programming was pretty well done, the attendance was unfortunately very low,” College freshman Max Silverman said. “Having never done The Line, I expected it to be full, and I was pretty disappointed with the amount of people who showed up.”
Brandon Bell contributed reporting to this article.
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