MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The nationally-ranked WVU men’s basketball team will play in front of a home crowd for the first time this season when it battles Florida at the Coliseum in Morgantown Saturday.
The game will mark the beginning of a previously announced policy that allows 1,000 fans to attend WVU men’s and women’s basketball games along with wrestling and gymnastics. Until now, only invited guests of players, staff and media have been in attendance.
WVU Associate Athletics Director for Facilities and Operations April Messerly said they’re excited to get at least some fans into the Coliseum.
“We would always love to safely have more fans and we will continue to work with our medical group to hopefully get that approval at some point, but we are also sensitive to what’s going on in this community, in this state and around us,” Messerly said.
Under non-pandemic conditions, the Coliseum would hold 14,000 spectators, but that creates a social distancing issue as the pandemic continues.
Messerly said they’ll be able to seat 1,000 comfortably. Officials have created a manifest to ensure fans are seated in a socially distanced fashion. Markings in stands will make it very clear where seating is allowed.
Messerly said the tickets were first offered for purchase to members of the Mountaineer Athletic Club.
“We will also offer limited student attendance as well,” she said.
Officials from the athletic staff, local health department university health team will watch the data and meet weekly with the possibility of expanding the number of fans before the season is over, Messerly said.
“Football, we started off this way as well- we had just player guests and then we got approval to have more fans,” Messerly said. “We meet weekly and that’s when we revaluate all the variables.”
Tip-off Saturday is set for 2 p.m.