PHILADELPHIA (AP) \u2014 Travis Steele heard the murmurs inside the arena burst into a rock-concert explosion of noise as 27 lithe men \u2014 wearing nothing but Speedos, goggles and swim caps \u2014 bum-rushed the stands behind the basket and waved their arms to provide a nearly-nude distraction on opposing free-throw attempts.<\/p>\n
With Miami (Ohio) already riding a wave of popularity as one of college basketball’s darlings, the swim team’s Speedo stunt added a ripple of excitement during the RedHawks’ March Madness opener.<\/p>\n
Steele coached the RedHawks to a 31-0 regular-season record that almost took a backseat (or backstroke?) to the swimmers’ antics.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know if I was distracted, I know the young man at the line was distracted,\u201d Steele said of the swimmers\u2019 arena arrival at the First Four in Dayton, Ohio. \u201cObviously, it worked. He missed a free throw.\u201d<\/p>\n
SMU’s Corey Washington \u2014 perhaps thrown off by the wall of topless men with hairless bodies \u2014 indeed missed a foul shot after the swimmers swarmed the area behind the backboard.<\/p>\n
Miami (Ohio) went on to beat SMU 89-79 on Wednesday night for its first NCAA Tournament victory in 27 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see these guys all in Speedos sprinting down the stairwell right there at UD arena in the end zone, and it\u2019s like, ‘Oh my God,\u201d Steele said.<\/p>\n
Luke Pugh, a freshman swimmer out of Indiana, was the one who decided the swim team should wade out of the starting blocks and into the basketball stands.<\/p>\n
Pugh thought it would be fun to find a way to throw some colorful support behind the basketball team, in the spirit of Duke’s Cameron Crazies. His suggestion in the team group chat eventually led to the swimmers attending their first home game in January.<\/p>\n
Their support stretched all the way to Miami’s tournament win in Dayton, about an hour’s drive from the RedHawks’ campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn’t expect to blow up like we did,\u201d Pugh said.<\/p>\n
Pugh said maybe 20 members of the team attended the first game but the number grew as the win total \u2014 and attention \u2014 swelled.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more and more we did it, more and more members of the team showed up,\u201d Pugh said.<\/p>\n
To answer some basic questions, no, the team doesn’t wear only Speedos the entire game. The team dons color-coordinated civilian clothes for the first half. In the second half, the changeover in the student section happens \u2014 the shirts, pants and shoes are tossed aside in exchange for the minimal-coverage swimwear.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do think it’s effective,\u201d Pugh said. \u201cHow much exactly, I’m not too sure. But definitely I believe it has an impact on their shooting average. We do it enjoy it a lot. It’s pretty fun, (Wednesday) night especially. When we were running downstairs to get behind the goal, the arena erupted. I feel like the energy changed for the rest of the game after that moment from the fans.\u201d<\/p>\n
To answer another question, no, it doesn’t take a special kind of bravery to stand tall in the skin-tight suit on national television.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’d say it’s better than practice because we’re not in the cold water,\u201d Pugh said.<\/p>\n
Miami has yet to shrink in the spotlight, even as its inclusion in the field forced one of the deeper dives into any resume of the 68 teams. The RedHawks went undefeated without a Quad 1 win and just about sunk to the bottom of the list in strength-of-schedule rankings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told our guys if we\u2019re not asking for (the critics’) opinion about our team, I\u2019m not calling them for advice, then why the heck should we listen to them now? We know how good we are,\u201d Steele said. \u201cWe know we deserve this opportunity. We knew we were a team that could advance. We\u2019re very confident in that. We\u2019re going to go showcase that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The short turnaround from Wednesday to Friday and exorbitant cost of travel, tickets and lodging might make it impossible for many swimmers to travel to Philadelphia \u2014 there was talk, of course, of pooling resources \u2014 in time for the game against Tennessee.<\/p>\n
The RedHawks got big laughs and great appreciation out of their supporters throughout the Mid-American Conference season and hoped the scantily clad fans would somehow make it to Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s pretty awesome how they support us all the time,\u201d guard Eian Elmer said. \u201cThey\u2019re very effective. We\u2019ll make sure we return the favor and show up to some swim meets.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (AP) \u2014 Travis Steele heard the murmurs inside the arena burst into a rock-concert explosion of noise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-198628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}