ORLANDO, Fla.
The chanting began blocks away from the Amway Center on Church Street before Wichita State made its debut in the American Athletic Conference tournament in Orlando on Friday night.
"You don't want to go to war," the crowd would sing, only to grow even louder to shout "with the Shockers!"
Wichita State's war chant could be heard in downtown Orlando nearly two hours before the Shockers defeated Temple, 89-81, in the quarterfinals. Shortly after all of the fans filed in, the Amway Center was estimated to have 95 percent of its crowd dressed in black and yellow.
"It felt like we were back at Wichita for a second," Temple's Quinton Rose said.
The night before, when WSU wasn't even playing, Shocker fans made most of the attendance of the Tulane-Temple game. More of the same is expected in Saturday's 2:30 p.m. semifinal against Houston.
"Just wait until this thing is in Fort Worth (in 2020) and Memphis (in 2019), you're going to see even more black and yellow here," American commissioner Mike Aresco said, as he looked at the 1,500 Shocker fans in attendance. "This is not an easy place to travel to, so we're thrilled we have this many. But I knew they would come support their team. It's such a great fan base."
It was a beautiful sight to see for WSU fan Garry Sage, 49, from Palm Desert, Calif. He was born and raised in Wichita before moving away, but he never lost his ties to the Shockers. He was even recruited to be a WSU baseball player by Gene Stephenson when he was in high school.
He attended Arch Madness for the last six years and said it was a no-brainer to continue the tradition of making WSU's conference tournament into a road trip, even if it meant the additional expenses to travel to Florida.
"What I love about it is everyone here has been so kind to us," Sage said. "Workers (at Amway) are so excited and thankful that we're here because we dominate the crowd. We were coming up the escalator and the ladies behind the concessions were so excited to see us. They were like, 'Yes, the Shockers are back!'"
That's typical for WSU fan Alek Hansen, 29, a 2011 WSU graduate who lives in Erie, Pa.
When he was wearing his Shocker yellow to work this week before heading down to Orlando, Hansen said co-workers and other people often stop him to ask about the team.
"Our word is spreading a lot," Hansen said. "When I'm up in Erie and I'm wearing something Shockers, people always want to talk about Wichita State with me and ask me where I got my shirt. Then I'm like, 'I went there' and they're amazed. I get all kinds of questions, but people are always huge fans."
According to WSU's marketing department, the university sold around 900 tickets to fans through its ticket office. Many others purchased tickets through other schools' ticket offices and third-party web sites.
WSU athletic director Darron Boatright said he was stopped by the athletic director at four other schools in the conference to commend him on his school's rabid fan support.
"We knew the fan support was always going to be there this year, then we knew we were going to have a pretty good team," Boatright said. "Things have worked pretty well this first year, so now it's time to win us a championship."
This story was originally published March 10, 2018 11:25 AM.