New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Going viral: Record student section turnout immortalized in picture
Taylor Coonan waited in line for nearly seven hours ahead of the UConn women’s basketball NCAA tournament game against UCF Monday night.
It was the last game at Gampel Pavilion for the UConn senior and she wanted to make sure she had a seat in the front rows of the student section. She was the first in line at the student entrance at 2:15 p.m. Monday.
Over 4,000 students attended UConn’s 52-47 win. It was the largest student crowd ever at a UConn basketball game, according to the school.
And the noise inside Gampel Pavilion proved it.
Every seat in the student section was filled from front row to up and back against the wall, adding to the energy of the announced sellout.
While the Huskies’ win punched their ticket to this weekend’s Sweet 16 in Bridgeport (Saturday at 2 p.m. vs. No. 3 Indiana), the record student-section energy in the secondround win lingered over the past few days thanks to a viral photo.
The picture, taken by UConn photographer Stephen Slade, shows Paige Bueckers clenching her fist and facing and screaming at the student section. Facing Bueckers, is a collection of students reacting to the UConn star.
The group of mostly women is decked out in Husky gear and screaming back at Bueckers, raising their arms in celebration with her.
The photo was shared by ESPN’s Twitter account Wednesday morning. As of Thursday night, ESPN’s post had over 1,600 retweets and over 20,000 likes.
Coonan and her roommate, Camryn Walsh, are in the center of the picture, forever immortalized in the moment of one of UConn’s most memorable and heated games in Storrs.
“I have never been second row before and the fact that the basketball