DURHAM, N.C. – If you think playing the No. 1 team in the nation is daunting, try playing in an arena housing a sea of blue and white, where the fans are literally on top of you, and you have to shout to the person next to you to have a conversation.
Duke University’s Cameron Indoor Stadium looks like someone stuck a basketball court in the middle of a church. The outside is a castle, complete with archway entrances and reinforced with stone.
The inside houses the Cameron Crazies – a very much louder and larger equivalent of BU’s Dog Pound. The ceiling is low like Walter Brown Arena and the noise reverberates off the wooden benches that seat the students, who are so close that members of the press have to hurdle the media desks from the court because there’s no other way to get there.
The fans have an array of chants and taunts, not unlike BU’s hockey followers, and hand out one-page fan guides that contain strict directions and rules for the Cameron Crazies (“We don’t sit during the game … so go to the gym and build up those calf muscles”) and even suggestions (“Possible chant: ‘Sucks to BU!'”).
So you’d figure this unique, raucous and unforgiving atmosphere would have an effect on a BU team that played seven players who never played a minute of college basketball before last night.
“Some of the guys, myself included, coming into this atmosphere, not being able to hear … it was a little overwhelming, I guess,” said senior guard Shaun Wynn. “They were loud. They were crazy, but for me personally, it wasn’t too much of an edge.”
The 9,314 screaming fans, donning only blue and white, tried to give the Blue Devils as much of an advantage as possible. The student section never sat. And the noise never stopped.
At one point in the first half, BU’s Tony Gaffney and Bryan Geffen got visibly mixed up trying to communicate plays in the offensive end. Gaffney could be seen mouthing, “I can’t hear you” to Geffen after the point guard had tried to relay a play to him.
“It’s loud. You can’t hear anything,” Gaffney said. “It’s almost as though you can’t even hear the crowd. We had hand signals. They seemed to work pretty well.”
Gaffney said that despite not being able to hear, he enjoyed the atmosphere.
“The fans are great,” he said. “They make it fun, you know.”
Kevin Gardner agreed. Playing at Cameron was a lot better than playing in an empty arena, he said.
“It’s definitely a great atmosphere,” Gardner said. “To tell you the truth, I like playing in places like this versus an empty gym – even if they’re rooting against you. It just brings the intensity of the game up and makes it a lot of fun.”
Wynn said he didn’t mind playing at Cameron either, especially since he’s played in places where fans weren’t the biggest problem.
“I mean, I’m from the hood myself,” Wynn said. “I’ve played in crazy environments where you don’t know if you’re gonna walk off the court alive, so playing here was cool. The fans screaming, that’s what college basketball is all about. Growing up, it’s something you look forward to, playing at Cameron. It was a good experience.”
BU freshman marksman Corey Hassan, playing in his first collegiate game ever, was thrilled just to be inside an arena he had seen on television so many times before.
“I’ve been watching games on ESPN since I was five, and I’ve seen inside here a million times,” Hassan said. “I never thought I would actually play in here. It’s incredible to be here, especially for my first game. I’ve always wanted to be here once and to be able to play here is unreal.”