Bringing Back the Boom

It's a practiced art mastered by OU students.

As the public address announcer begins reading the first of five visiting starters, newspapers rise in unison – an act of indifference to who the opponent is sending onto the court.

The lights dim, the intro video plays and the Sooner starters are greeted with thundering applause while as many as 1,600 students lower their papers and rapidly begin tearing in the seconds before tipoff.

The waiting begins. The destroyed paper is stuffed into pockets, clinched in sweaty palms and anxiously grasped until the moment is right. The band plays, the ball is tipped and the crowd patiently waits for that first Sooner score.

And then it happens.

The ball glides through the net for Oklahoma's first bucket – and with it, pandemonium ensues. The shreds of paper are tossed in the air as a choreographed sea of confetti. Costumed college students jump and holler. Sock monkeys, tigers and bananas come to life on the baseline and an ear-splitting roar fills the Lloyd Noble Center. A united group of crimson-and-cream clad crazies have brought back life to the OU student section, and with it comes 40 minutes of in-your-face distraction, dissonance and deafening cheers.

This is the BoomSquad.

From the time I got here to where it is now, the student section just jumped 500 percent. They've gotten so much rowdier and I love it. It's an awesome atmosphere in games now.
Khadeem Lattin

A collected building effort between student leaders and the team itself, the BoomSquad has continued to grow each season of Lon Kruger's tenure. Not only does the rowdy group of OU students add to the atmosphere at the Lloyd Noble Center, it has created an environment for the Sooners to win.

“When the BoomSquad is going crazy and the student section is alive, we play better,” said junior forward Khadeem Lattin. “We feed off their energy. It definitely helps us. When you look up and see all the Sooner family cheering for you and pushing you it gives you an extra edge to do what you need to do for them.”

But it wasn't always this way. Just five years ago at the start of Lon Kruger's tenure at Oklahoma, the environment at the LNC was much quieter. As Kruger continues his work of restoring the hoops program to one of the nation's best, the students aim to do their part in giving the Sooners the best home-court advantage. So far, they've succeeded. Student attendance has increased by over 100 percent from Kruger's first season in 2011-12.

“The student section has been fantastic,” said Kruger. “The BoomSquad every year has gotten better and better, I think when the students took ownership and started making it a good time and making it an event. It really has an impact on our game and the energy level of our players. Coaches and players really appreciate their support.”

From the day he was introduced as head coach in the spring of 2011, Kruger made it a priority to involve the university's student body. As much as he was brought in to rebuild the Sooner basketball program, he also took it upon himself to rebuild the Sooner gameday environment.

"We've heard over and over since we've been here the student interest hasn't been what we need it to be," Kruger said weeks after being hired. "So we set out with that being our number one priority. Our number one target is to get students in the building."

Kruger meant what he said and spent his first few years at OU visiting with campus organizations, Greek life and incoming freshmen – anyone who was open and willing to talk about improving student interest and attendance. Recruiting future student-athletes in a high school gym one night, recruiting future student section members in a fraternity house the next.

As the Sooners returned to the NCAA Tournament in just the second season under Kruger and a certain guard from the Bahamas arrived in Norman, word of Kruger's turnaround began to spread. That's when a pair of college basketball junkies took notice.

Parker Semin and Evan Troka had always loved college hoops and longed for the deafening environments of Cameron Indoor Stadium, Rupp Arena and Allen Fieldhouse. Juniors at the time, the pair of OU students attempted a grass roots movement on social media to engage their fellow students in creating a similar atmosphere at the Lloyd Noble Center. After failed attempts in the fall semester of 2014, the two returned from winter break with a plan to create a buzz around campus.

The lonely tent of the original Krug's Kamp on a cold January night in 2015.

On a cold Friday night in January, they pitched a tent in the Lloyd Noble Center parking lot to camp out before the next day's game against Oklahoma State. A few cameras came and tweets were sent as other students questioned why the pair would camp out in the cold when they could easily access front row seats by showing up an hour before the game. Semin and Troka stressed that this team of Sooners was special – real special– and deserved to be camped out for. Not only did other students take notice of their stunt, but so did the team.

“That first game we camped out, Coach Kruger actually brought us breakfast that morning and then invited us to come in for shootaround before they played that night,” said Troka. “From that point on you could tell how important students were to him and how important they were to his team. We had a couple of players like Ryan Spangler visit us in the freezing cold one night and brought us hot chocolate. Buddy Hield came out to talk to us one time. I think they wanted it just as bad because every college basketball player wants to play in front of that ruckus home crowd. I think it just speaks to what it meant to them and what it meant to us.”

Semin and Troka continued their tradition for the remainder of the 2014-15 season, bringing attention to the student section and the type of fan base they craved. They added other attention-grabbing stunts, such as Semin walking around campus for half a week in a chicken costume. The two created a Twitter account to spread awareness and build hype for each game.

As conference play continued the student section began to grow. Other students began dressing up in costumes. Semin's chicken costume was accompanied by Troka's tiger. With help by the OU marketing department, the growing group of supporters were armed with cardboard cutouts of player heads, celebrities and Kermit the Frog drinking a cup of tea. New students began to show up at games and even join the original residents of “Krug's Kamp” in the tent village the night before each game.

The group was just missing one thing - a name. Taking advantage of the ever-increasing buzz, the marketing department employed on-campus advertising group Lindsey + Asp to develop a March Madness-like bracket of potential student section names. Winning the bracket challenge by popular demand, the “BoomSquad” was officially born. The athletics department announced it as the winning name the day of OU's final home game of the season against Kansas. The support that night was the loudest it had been all year – culminating with a buzzer-beating tip-in by Hield to knock off the No. 9-ranked Jayhawks in a moment that Troka and many other students will never forget.

It makes so much of a difference. Our players talk about it. The energy level they feel when they run out of that tunnel and the students are up and going and the band is going. It makes just such a difference in the attitude and motivation of our players.
Lon Kruger

“Buddy tips it in at the buzzer and runs straight to the student section and the students just pile over the barrier because he was so happy we were there and we were so happy he came to us,” said Troka. “It felt to us like we were as much a part of those wins as the team was and they felt just the same way. It's one of those things I'll never forget. I think the bond between the students and the players is really special.”

The momentum continued into the 2015-16 season, a historic year for the OU basketball program. Krug's Kamp continued to grow, even in non-conference games. The BoomSquad was fuller, louder and even more populated with big heads. Students began to get hooked on the costume parties taking place on the north baseline 15 nights a year. New members who had never expressed interested in Sooner basketball before were quickly coming around.

“I'm ashamed to say this, but I didn't go to a single game to my freshmen year,” said Megan Rowe, a senior sports management major at OU. “Parker convinced me to just come and try it and out. The first time I went I just dove right in. I camped out and did the whole thing and it was one of the greatest experiences of my college career. I left that game thinking, 'Let's do this all the time.'”

Three years later, Rowe is now the co-president of the BoomSquad. Alongside fellow co-president Kyle Smith, the two help assemble cheer sheets, communicate to students, grow involvement and work in conjunction with the OU marketing staff.

BoomSquad Co-Vice President Megan Rowe

“We just wanted them to run with it,” said Eli Wilkerson, OU's director of marketing and fan experience. “We had meetings to talk about things that they could do. They started doing the cheer sheets and coming up with different things we could do to support them. We just wanted to be their help along the way but have everything be their stuff. We encouraged them to be fun and creative.”

Rowe and Smith have big plans for the 2016-17 season – filled with home games against every Big 12 foe along with non-conference games against the likes of Florida and Memphis. The two hope to initiate more in-game traditions and coordinated chants while, yes, adding even more big heads to the crowd.

As much fun as the BoomSquad is having in the stands these days, their support does not go unnoticed by their fellow students on the court.

“From the time I got here to where it is now, the student section just jumped 500 percent,” said Lattin. “They've gotten so much rowdier and I love it. It's an awesome atmosphere in games now. I feel like we're number one in terms of student sections. We need to make it a tradition and keep it up.”

The BoomSquad has become a full member of the Sooner basketball experience. Fans have come to expect a ruckus crowd off the court and a competitive team on it. The two come hand in hand, each group inspiring the other to bring their best for all 40 minutes.

“It makes so much of a difference,” added Kruger. “Our players talk about it. The energy level they feel when they run out of that tunnel and the students are up and going and the band is going. It makes just such a difference in the attitude and motivation of our players.”

The Sooners have compiled a 28-2 record at home the past two seasons and look to continue their run of success behind the energy and fuel of the BoomSquad along with the rest of the Lloyd Noble Center crowd. Kruger points the past success of the BoomSquad coming from students taking pride in the group, and he hopes to see that passion continue in 2016-17.

“It's a shared ownership,” said Kruger. “The atmosphere in any college building is going to be determined mostly by the student population and our students have gotten to where they're as good as any in the conference right now. We just have to keep that going and keep it growing and get it there early in November and build it from there.”

Kruger is bringing back the winning ways to the Lloyd Noble Center.

OU students are bringing back the boom.