Follow
The Lewis and USC match Thursday was one of the highest attended men’s volleyball NCAA Tournament semifinal matches in recent history.
The 4,375 people in attendance to watch the No. 2 seed USC defeat the No. 3 seed Lewis on Thursday was the largest crowd for a men’s volleyball NCAA Tournament semifinal match in four years.
The match played at USC’s Galen Center surpassed last year’s highest attended NCAA Tournament semifinal match — Penn State and Ohio State in University Park, Pa. — by more than 500 people.
This was also the first time a NCAA Tournament semifinal match had more than 4,000 people in attendance since the 2008 NCAA Tournament semifinals were played in front of a sold-out 5,000-person crowd at UC Irvine’s Bren Events Center.
The match between Lewis and USC also ranked as the fourth highest attended NCAA Tournament semifinal match since 2005. The record during that time span remains the 2005 NCAA Tournament semifinal match of Penn State versus UCLA at Pauley Pavilion that had 5,125 people in attendance.
The No. 1 seed UC Irvine in the other NCAA Tournament semifinal match Thursday defeated the No. 4 seed Penn State in front of 2,750 people in attendance.
The Anteaters and Trojans will play each other in the NCAA Tournament championship match at 10 p.m. (EST) Saturday at the Galen Center.
That was nothing. We’re bringing WAY more people Saturday. What a match! Beat the ‘Eaters. Fight On!
Everyone had to be in house since there’s no TV!
Funny they made a big deal out of this. At BYU this is a weekly number. It used to be common at UH too.
The finals should be higher with USC hosting and UCI not far away, though attendance at the MPSF Finals last week was only 1,500. Will tonight surpass the 6,635 in 2010 at Stanford, which played Penn State or the 6,853 in 2005 at UCLA, which played Pepperdine? Will the ESPNU broadcast affect attendance? What’s the largest attendance for a Final Four semifinal or final without the host participating? USC definitely deserved the at-large bid, but I wonder how much hosting would factor if all else were equal.