GAINESVILLE — Florida basketball’s game Tuesday against Tennessee is the program biggest home game in years.
As such, it is a tough ticket.
For some students, it proved a little too tough.
UFPD officers turned hoards of students away from Gate 3 of the O’Connell Center and moved others out of the student section before tipoff with the Volunteers.
The Gators ticket office advertised $35 tickets for fans to sit in the student section. Usually the lower bowl seats between Sections 7 and 15 in the O’Connell Center are reserved for students.
However, UF students don’t return from for the spring semester until Jan. 13, so the ticket office decided to sell tickets in the student section for the Tennessee, North Florida and Stetson games. According to a UF spokesperson, 900 student tickets were allotted for Tuesday’s game.
Freshman Lucas Garcia said he was not made aware of this. The business administration major waited for 45 minutes outside the O’Connell Center before being told by UFPD that no more students would be let in.
“I feel a little misled,” Garcia said. “If they had put that in the email, it would have encouraged me to show up earlier.”
Some students did show up earlier. Senior Angel Cannon arrived at the O’Connell Center around 5 p.m. Tuesday. He never experienced an issue getting in before. Like Garcia, Cannon was not told that student tickets were limited for the game.
Cannon called the situation “absolutely frustrating.”
“This is first and foremost a university. It should be prioritizing students instead of anyone else, because we’re the ones who go to the games. We’re the one who pays tuitions,” Cannon said.
He continued and noted how the “Rowdy Reptiles” are usually the most boisterous fans in attendance.
“If you want to win home games, you got to have a rowdy crowd, and if you don’t have students in the student section, why even call it a student section?” Cannon wondered.
The economics major and accounting minor called the game the “highlight of his week” and said he came back to Gainesville a few days early for the showdown.
“I had just come back from a trip, and once I was free, I was like, ‘I got to be back in the university, and really enjoying my last year as a senior,” Cannon said.
Around tipoff at 7 p.m., UFPD installed barricades outside Gate 3 and refused to let new students in line. An announcement stated that only the next 100 students in line would be let in.
Two minutes later, police told the crowd there were no more student tickets.
Garcia believed there were only 50 students ahead of him in line when police said 100 more would be let in. The freshman believes he was misled on that too.
He thinks more gates for students should be opened, to alleviate the lines.
“The fact there’s only one gate for a whole student section is kind of nefarious. I think having two lines makes it go smoother,” Garcia said. “People can know earlier whether they can enter the game.”
No. 8 Florida currently leads No. 1 Tennessee in the second half.
Noah Ram covers Gainesville-area high school sports and University of Florida athletics for The Gainesville Sun and the USA TODAY Network. Contact him by email at [email protected] and follow him @Noah_ram1 on X/Twitter.
