Wichita State will host ESPN’s College GameDay

ESPN made it official Saturday: “College GameDay” is coming to Koch Arena for the Feb. 28 game between No. 11 Northern Iowa and No. 13 Wichita State.

ESPN’s college basketball preview show will make its first stop at Wichita State and its second at a Missouri Valley Conference school for its 10 a.m. mix of analysis, news and skits. It moves to Lawrence for a 4 p.m. show that will preview Texas vs. No. 8 Kansas. The show is hosted by Rece Davis, who moderates a panel of Jay Bilas, Jay Williams and Seth Greenberg

WSU plans to open the east entrance for students (with I.D.) at 8:15 a.m. All other entrances open at 8:30 a.m. for the public. Admission is free. WSU will clear the arena after the one-hour show to prepare for the 1 p.m. tip off. Fans with tickets will be admitted around 11:30 a.m.

Saturday’s announcement makes for an interesting Monday morning in Wichita State’s Sport Public Relations, taught by Mike Ross.

Last season, the class made bringing the ESPN show to campus a project to teach students how to develop and execute promotions using social media. Using Twitter ( #GamedayinWichita), Facebook, Instagram and other avenues, the classes pushed the idea of bringing GameDay to WSU to ESPN’s decision-makers and to keep Shocker fans enthused.

Ross plans two or three minutes of celebration before the class gets busy. Strategies are due at 9 p.m. Sunday.

“Now we’ll be more in the mode of what this means to the university,” he said. “We want to continue the momentum and get people excited about going.”

That shouldn’t be difficult. WSU wants to fill Koch Arena for the show that begins its live portion at 10 a.m. Shuttles will run from the Hughes Metropolitan Complex to and from the arena from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Normal parking permits will apply.

In 2008, “GameDay” originated from SIU Arena for a Creighton-Southern Illinois game, the only time for MVC schools to appear.

This story was originally published February 21, 2015 at 11:11 AM with the headline "Wichita State will host ESPN’s College GameDay."