AU Men’s Basketball Fan Club Seeks to Kindle School Spirit
By Row Sullivan
Contributing: Annette Hochstadt, Nora Lewis, Greta Redleaf, and Marissa Sasso
Tonight marks the start of the Patriot League Men’s Basketball tournament, with #7 American kicking off the Patriot League tournament tonight against #10 Bucknell at 7 p.m. in Bender Arena.
After a disappointing 2021-22 campaign saw men’s basketball only go 10-22 overall before losing in the Patriot League quarterfinals, this season’s team got off to a hot start, winning 12 of their first 15 games, including going 4-0 to open Patriot League play and knocking off local rival Georgetown for the first time since 1982.
Finding school spirit at American University can feel like an impossible task, but the Eagles exciting start gave a buzz to the program that hadn’t existed for several years. People began to take notice, including The Washington Post, who speculated that AU might be the best college basketball team in the District. During a January 8th contest against Boston while students were still on winter break, the team drew their largest crowd to Bender Arena in 14 years.
The Eagles fast start also inspired the start of an AU Men’s Basketball Fan Club on Instagram (@aumbbfanclub). The Fan Club, who has chosen to remain an anonymous leader of the AU faithful, began posting edits and content in support of the team in late January in an attempt to increase school spirit.
“We understand why people dislike AU for certain reasons, we do too, but I don’t think that lack of support should reflect onto our athletics. Our athletes and teams need support from the community, and they are fun games to watch! And I’m not talking just about [only] men's basketball, literally every sport,” the Fan Club said of school spirit on campus.
They added, “We would make accounts for every team if we could, but we just don’t have the manpower for that.” (For no particular reason, The Rival would be amused to see a Track and Cross Country Fan Club.)
The Fan Club sees their page as filling a void in the lack of school spirit, giving supporters a space where they can be enthusiastic about the team’s success.
“We were inspired to start the fan page when the men's team was doing really well and we thought they weren’t getting as much hype as they should’ve. We wanted to give the players some support by making them an account where all of AU [Men’s Basketball’s] fans can gather in one place to support them, since there wasn’t really anything like that at our school. Obviously there was a market for the account because we’ve gained over 400 followers and counting in one month. We appreciate the support and it just further affirms that there are people at AU who care about the team.”
The existence of the fan page has led to some amusing moments for the Fan Club, which has allowed both the admins of the page and their followers to see the team publicized in a more personal, informal setting than the athletic department’s official page for the team.
“Finding out Johnny O’Neil’s real name is John Jr.” said the Fan Club of their favorite moment running the account. “Or honestly maybe just talking to the players in general in the DMs. Some of them are really funny and put up with our antics, some of them don’t answer.”
On their interactions with the players the Fan Club added that “We didn’t have a favorite player going in but just based on how some players interacted with the account it’s definitely created a ranking for us.”
“We actually made a post about it on our account with a pyramid ranking. I think Matt Delaney has been the nicest, Lincoln Ball has been the funniest, and Matt Rogers, Johnny O’Neil, Colin Smalls have [all] been really nice and appreciative of our support. The other players interact just not as much on a consistent basis.”
And while the Eagles have struggled through the month of February, ending the regular season on a 6 game losing streak and falling to 7th seed in the Patriot League Tournament, the Fan Club remains faithful and scoffs at anyone who counts the Eagles out.
“AU MBB has the talent to win the tournament. There is nothing in their way of winning besides themselves. They have proven they can compete and beat Colgate, who is the #1 seed in the league. They just need to focus and work together to play their best games and they absolutely can do it. And [the] AU MBB Fan Club definitely thinks they will pull it off.”
In a final thought before the first round of the men’s tournament tonight, the Fan Club implores students to “Show up to support the teams!!! Not just AU [Men’s Basketball] but also AU [Women’s Basketball]!!! Both have home games this season, so we need to do our duty as the AU community and support our athletes!”
(The women’s team, the defending Patriot League Champions, currently sits in 7th in Patriot League play and has 1 remaining regular season game at Bucknell on Wednesday before the start of the women’s tournament)
And, because The Rival couldn’t resist soliciting an opinion on our favorite backflipping American University icon, the Fan Club relayed that “We love Clawed. He is literally the best mascot to ever grace this planet. We wish we saw him more. The school used to do more things with him in the past, it would be nice to see him more outside of the occasional basketball game. They don’t even do anything with him at halftime or anything. He just kinda lingers by the student section, it's very much bare minimum, but we love and support him anyway.”
In the name of school spirit, more Clawed is definitely a take The Rival can get behind.
AU students and community members can join the AU Men’s Basketball Fan Club in supporting the Eagles tonight, 7 p.m., in Bender Arena as they take on the Bucknell Bison in the opening round of the Patriot League tournament.