ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich. (WXYZ) — Talk about March Madness: Oakland fans are roaring into the weekend after their NCAA win over Kentucky on Thursday night.
The upset is the Golden Grizzlies' first NCAA Tournament win since 2005. It's a huge moment for the university that's now being talked about — and Google searched — nationally.
Oakland University alumni Nick Lucido, who was at the game Thursday in Pittsburgh and will be at Saturday's upcoming game said, "Now America's looking at us like, Oh, OK, they're not in California, they're in Rochester, Auburn Hills, Michigan — OK!"
OU women's basketball player Jasmine Dupree-Hebert said, "When people think Oakland, they’re like ‘Oakland, California?’ Like nooo. Now, they're seeing."
Director of Marketing and Digital Web Services at Oakland University Todd Nucci told 7 Action News that the influx of traffic to oakland.edu right after Thursdays game was monstrous.
The online traffic was so busy that the website temporarily crashed.
"You could see the whole map of the United States was lit up with that source traffic. We were seeing a lot of that traffic increase to the 'about' page, which was up 5,000%. Our history page was up 9,000%."
Nucci said he's never seen a single-day activity spike like Thursday's.
He says the OU Facebook page has been up nearly 500,000 in terms of engagement.
Still, nothing compared to the energy on the court Thursday night.
"It was unbelievable," Lucido said. "It was honestly probably the top sporting event I’ve probably ever been to in my lifetime."
OU alumni Austin Davis, who was also at Thursdays game and will be attending Saturdays said, "Even just this one win is going to help with enrollment and hopefully propelling our basketball team to the next level and our university to the next level."
"I know some of the guys that have been constantly putting in work over the summer and now, I finally get to see their work pay off for real," Dupree-Hebert said. "Especially Jack. He was shooting the heck out of the ball!"
Dupree-Herbert said that the success of one of the Grizzlies' teams is contagious.
All of the university, the city of Rochester and Grizzlies' fan base are now looking forward to Saturday.
"Just watching the boys play, it kind of gives the girls more confidence and stuff," Dupree-Hebert said. "Making us be like OK, well they can do it, we can do it too.'"
"If you can get that win to get to the Sweet 16," Davis commented. "That one day turns into a week. You get full coverage and you just become the spotlight for sports."
Lucido said, "Oakland University is on the map, and we’re not going anywhere."
The Golden Grizzlies game Saturday will be at 7:10 p.m.
