Wichita State planning first ‘blackout’ game in seven years for showdown vs. Memphis
A crowd blackout has been a rare, but an effective event over the years at Wichita State.
For the first time in seven years, Koch Arena will be hosting a blackout game for Thursday’s 6 p.m. showdown between No. 23 Wichita State (13-1) and No. 21 Memphis (12-2) that will be broadcast on ESPN2.
WSU will not be providing black shirts, but encourage every fan to dress in black for the game.
“I’m glad we’re doing it, but I’m not sure they even asked me,” WSU coach Gregg Marshall said. “Our marketing department wants to do a blackout, and it sounds like the fans want to do a blackout, so here we go.”
WSU has coordinated a crowd blackout just two other times during the 13-year career of Marshall, both ending with Shocker upset victories over Creighton.
The first came on January 17, 2009 when WSU started 0-6 in the Missouri Valley during Marshall’s second season. The crowd helped ignite the Shockers at home, knocking off eventual Valley champion Creighton, 74-61. The other was January 19, 2013, when an unranked WSU team upended No. 12 Creighton, 67-64.
“I remember we scheduled a blackout against Creighton, at that time our arch-nemesis,” Marshall said. “We won a close game and we’ve been gangbusters ever since. We basically turned it around. I think we were 4-14 the first year and 0-6 before that, so 4-20 in regular-season games up until that point. We were probably the opposite of that since then.
“(The blackout) helped. Hopefully this will do the same.”
The Shockers don’t figure to be underdogs at home on Thursday, but a win over preseason favorite Memphis would give the Shockers an early leg up on the Tigers in the race for the American Athletic Conference championship.
Memphis coach Penny Hardaway told Memphis reporters on Tuesday that he is preparing his team for a rowdy environment.
“It’s one of the toughest places to play because (Wichita State) is the only team in town,” Hardaway said. “So everybody buys in. The whole city shuts down and everybody comes out.”
Memphis built up a lot of steam before the season with the No. 1 recruiting class and national analysts making the Tigers an almost unanimous pick to win the conference.
A loss over the weekend to Georgia dropped Memphis 12 spots in the rankings to No. 21, but Thursday’s matchup hasn’t lost any of its luster.
It will be the first matchup between ranked teams at Koch Arena since No. 6 Cincinnati beat No. 16 Wichita State, 62-61, on March 4, 2018 with the AAC title at stake.
This story was originally published January 7, 2020 at 5:28 PM.
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