Following Florida volleyball’s three-set sweep over Ole Miss on Sunday, fans dressed in orange and blue left the O’Connell Center in joy or stayed on the court to talk with players and get autographs.

A few minutes later, as players, coaches and fans left the venue ready to take on the rest of their Sunday, the O’Connell Center staff moved on to the next event: Florida men’s basketball’s exhibition game against Stetson on Tuesday.

Starting around 3:30 p.m., about 80 students and staff began the transformative process that would last until 4:30 a.m. on Monday. With the men’s and women’s basketball seasons starting next week, O’Connell Center staff are preparing for many more of these transformations, which pick up during the spring season.

“It is definitely very hectic,” Hadley Owen, the senior event coordinator of the O’Connell Center, said. “It is a super, super big time crunch.”

Owen, 28, has been with the O’Connell Center since 2017, starting as an event staff supervisor. She’s been the senior event coordinator since 2021.

She said having an extra day between events is a luxury, taking the time crunch off the staff.

Once patrons leave O’Connell Center, Owen said the team starts its strike period, which involves having students go around the arena with garbage bags, cleaning up the concourse and seating areas. The staff also pushed back the bleachers to make room to swap the courts.

To prepare for a men’s basketball game, Owen said her staff also has to tidy up the George Brand Center Court Club, a private lounge overlooking the basketball court, as these sporting events tend to have more boosters. The space is not used during volleyball games.

When it comes to getting the locker rooms ready, Owen said each Florida team has its own, so no changes are needed on their end. However, the visiting team locker rooms are more generic and are used by different away teams for various sporting events; therefore, the staff has to tidy up the locker room and reorganize the layout depending on the team that’s coming in.

Also, because Tuesday is the first basketball game of the season, Owen said the staff is making sure to spend extra time and attention presenting the venue in the best way possible. This includes ensuring there are an appropriate number of metal detectors, tables and stanchions to direct foot traffic next to the security screening areas.

“It’s the first game back, and maybe the first time those fans will be back in the building in a while,” Owen said. “We want to make sure that we’re presenting it well and that we’re doing what we can to support the team.”

The process of changing the playing area starts with removing the volleyball equipment to clear the floor, such as disassembling the net and removing the taped lines on the court.

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“The bleachers are a beast of their own,” Caroline Gordon, a senior accounting student at the University of Florida and changeover division head at the O’Connell Center, said. “The building is never set the exact same way twice.”

Gordon added that moving the bleachers back is not as simple as just pressing a button; instead, student volunteers make sure the seats have the perfect gap between them to ensure they’re safe for patrons. Before pushing the bleachers back, student volunteers remove the railings on the front and the side of the bleachers, which are then stored in a storage unit on the ground level of the building.

Gordon joined the team as a supervisor her freshman Fall and was promoted four days in. She said the O’Connell Center tends to promote students early on in the changeover division, when they are first- or second-year students. Since then, Gordon has been part of the student staff, with shifts that run through the night and early morning, depending on the timing of events at the venue.

“We don’t sleep, but that’s our job,” Gordon said. “I love this job so much.”

The next step in the transition from volleyball to basketball is when the staff takes off the Taraflex: a half-inch-thick layer of padding that goes over the volleyball court. This is known as the “Taraflex up” shift.

Jacob Adkins, a 20-year-old advertising and sports management junior, is the assistant changeover manager and the floor crew head. He oversees the floor change, putting him in charge of scheduling, staffing and personnel.

He said he enjoys the pressure that is on his staff to make sure the court is ready for a game. He added that former Gator men’s basketball point guard Walter Clayton Jr. called his staff the “sixth men” when he saw them changing the court overnight.

“Pressure is a privilege because it’s fun to come in and know you have an effect on that team,” Adkins said. “You’re the sixth man behind the scenes that nobody sees.”

The Taraflex is placed above the retired Billy Donovan Court to provide the structure before the padding.

Staff peels off the padding, which is broken into 4-foot-wide planks that stretch halfway across the surrounding court areas. Then they peel off the service zones up to the court itself. The different planks of Taraflex are then rolled up using polyvinyl chloride pipes and then stored in the marshalling room, which is next to where the bleacher railings are stored.

Next, Adkins said the “wood up” crew come in to dismantle the basketball court that was under the Taraflex.

The court is broken into wooden panels that are 8 feet long by 4 feet wide and weigh about 200 pounds each. The crew puts the panels on a cart and brings them into the marshalling room with the Tarflex rolled up in PVC pipes.

“Each piece of the floor, it’s like a big puzzle piece,” Adkins said.

Then, the “wood down” crew comes in. They lay the new basketball court down, panel by panel, using pins to put it together. Halfway through, Adkins said the team forklifts the two basketball hoops onto the court, where they are nailed into place.

The crew then finishes connecting the rest of the court, completing the “wood down” phase.

Next, a new set of staff comes in for the auxiliary cleaning phase, when staff mops the court, making it shiny and removing scuffs with tennis balls. The aux crew leaves at 12:30 a.m.

Starting at 1 a.m., the final step in the transformation process begins: pulling the bleachers back out and reorienting the court-level chairs and tables along the court. Around 4:30 a.m., the process is done, and the O’Connell Center is ready to host No. 1 Florida men’s basketball’s exhibition game against Stetson.

Adkins said seeing fan reactions when they step into the O’Connell Center and see the court put together is his favorite part of the job. He recalled a little kid’s eyes lighting up as they entered the arena.

“It’s definitely rewarding,” he said. “I grew up loving sports, so I know how those experiences made me feel as a kid, and knowing that now I’m creating those is really rewarding.”

Contact Jeffrey Serber at Jserber@alligator.org. Follow him on X @JeffreySerber.

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Jeffrey Serber

Jeffrey is the Fall 2026 men’s basketball reporter and a third-year journalism sports & media major with a media, management and production minor. In his free time, he enjoys hanging out with friends and family and rooting for the Miami sports teams.