Florida Gulf Coast University’s men’s basketball team will face off fellow state school and number three seed University of Florida on Friday.
FGCU has become a hero of sorts in the past week after beating higher-ranked teams like Georgetown and San Diego State during last weekend’s NCAA tournament-- and now, the looming high-stakes game has the whole school on its toes.
This whole week, FGCU’s bookstore has been a flurry of activity. Students, staff and even people living in or visiting the area are buying up school merchandise in support of the newly famous basketball team.
Victor Katis visits Southwest Florida from Chicago every year during spring break. Through the years he said he’s become a big Eagles fan and has attended both men and women’s basketball games.
"This is exciting," he said. "When I told the guys at work that FGCU had a chance to beat Georgetown in the brackets everyone laughed at me and thought I was crazy and all that."
He’s now standing in line hoping to snag some FGCU gear before the big game.
"This is actually the third time we have been to the bookstore and both times before that there has been nothing to buy," Kaytis said. "It’s just been sold out. It’s been crazy here."
University officials said sales of FGCU Men’s basketball apparel and hats have gone up 1200 percent compared with sales this time last year.
The school’s website traffic is also growing by leaps and bounds. Before the tournament, the school’s website had less than 50 thousand unique visitors—on Monday, there were more than 230 thousand unique visitors.
Other athletic groups are also feeling the change. A coach for the Gulf Coast Soccer Academy says the program has been getting an additional 100 emails and 25 prospective student athlete questionnaires a day this week.
This Friday’s game might be hard to predict. U-F is a top-ranked program, but FGCU easily beat a higher-ranked school in the tournament.
FGCU sophomore Mike Wittock wasn't sweating it, though.
"We are the first 15 seed to get to the sweet 16 so not nervous at all. I think we will do great against UF honestly," Wittock said.
Ty Jackson from Cape Coral was also feeling good about the Eagle's odds.
"Jackson said I believe that they can do it," he said. "They have done what they’ve done so far and they were the underdog. Actually they weren’t even the underdog. No one knew they existed, really. So, I believe they are going to do it."
Two busses full of 100 FGCU students left last night for an overnight trip to watch FGCU and UF battle it out in the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington Texas Friday night at 10.
