Cal Poly spirit fires up after historic basketball win over UCLA

Posted: Nov 26, 2012 4:16 PM by Keli Moore, KSBY News
Updated: Nov 26, 2012 4:29 PM

Cal Poly's basketball team made history Sunday, beating the UCLA Bruins. The historic win has a lot of students talking and showing their spirit by wearing green and gold.

"With sports it always takes that one big win for a team to get that fan base that it needs, even with professional teams, I think it is like that," said Lauren Doherty, a senior.

Dohetry is somewhat of an expert on this topic. She's studying sports marketing at Cal Poly, and she has been working on a marketing strategy for the women's soccer team.

"The thing about Cal Poly is that we seem to struggle with school spirit with the lack of division one craziness, and I think with a win like this it is going to increase who is enthusiastic about sports," said Doherty.

As of Monday, it wasn't hard to find.

"Epic, yeah epic. Cal Poly is freaking awesome. I haven't been to a lot of basketball games, but now I for sure will go," said CJ Kobliska, a sophomore.

"You don't expect Cal Poly to be on ESPN, and I can't usually talk smack to your friends at other schools, but with wins like this you definitely can. It brings Cal Poly to a different level, we beat 11th-ranked UCLA, which is pretty momentous," said Jordan Horrillo, who is also a sophomore.

And that excitement translates into dollars.

"Right now it looks like people are buying the basketball shirts because we only have one left, and it is usually a full stack," said Michaela Tutor, while working a Cal Poly Downtown, a Mustang apparel shop.

"I think it's going to create a huge new fan base for Cal Poly," said Doherty.

That's exactly what the University wants - a win win for all.

There seems to be momentum across the board for Cal Poly's sports teams.

A few weeks ago the men's soccer team beat UCSB in front of a sold-out Spanos stadium.

The football team is having a great year as well, the playoffs are this weekend, and the women's basketball team is four and two.