Spokane finds second-best thing to the Kennel at U.S. Pavilion watch party

As the clock ticked down to the final minute in what was by all accounts the biggest basketball game ever played in Spokane, at least 1,000 people remianed under red and blue lights at the newly renovated U.S. Pavilion downtown cheered when ESPN announcers gave a shoutout to the fans left ticketless and out in the cold.

“Only in this part of the country, they had an outdoor watch party,” said one television commentator during the match-up between Gonzaga and the University of North Carolina.

Kari Smith said she arrived at 4:30 p.m. for the party, hosted by Hooptown USA and The Spokesman-Review’s Northwest Passages Book Club, to grab a table at the edge of the beer garden. By game time, the garden had reached its capacity of 290 people and a thick line of Zag fans waited to get in. Organizers said about 3,000 people RSVPed to attend and estimated at least 1,500 showed up.

“What better way to support our Zags?” said Smith, a Spokane resident for the last 13 years. “I just love Gonzaga, and I live in the GU district.”

The game tipped off at 6 p.m., just as the temperature outside was hitting 32 degrees. Shortly before that “Zombie Nation,” a pregame dance ritual in the Kennel at the McCarthey Athletic Center, played over the speakers while fans cheered along. Most everyone stayed through the final buzzer.

During the game, some spectators huddled around heaters, but others, like the Whitaker family, staked their claim to front-row seats at one of two giant television screens.

Marcia Whitaker said she attends games with her husband, Josh Whitaker, and two children, when they are able to get tickets, but they went to the watch party because they don’t have cable.

“This is something I’d rather be watching with people than sitting at home,” said Josh Whitaker. “They need to do more of this.”

Matt Santangelo, a former Gonzaga basketball player who launched Hooptown USA and leads the Spokane Hoopfest Association, said the event came together perfectly with the venue, weather, sponsors and vendors.

“Our idea was to create a moment around North Carolina being in Spokane,” said Santangelo, who added that Hooptown USA could host similar events in Spokane in the future.

Tate White, who earned his MBA from Gonzaga in 2008, invited his father Jim White, a North Idaho resident, to the game, and they enjoyed part of the game from the viewpoint high up in the Pavilion.

“It’s fun to bring the family out and share with the community how they feel” about the Zags, Tate White said.

He said his basketball team from Kellogg High School in Idaho visited a Gonzaga practice in the Martin Centre in the mid-’90s.

“We watched (Matt) Santangelo and (Richie) Frahm shoot around,” White remembered.

Because he worked full time as a master’s student, White said he only was able to attend two games in the Kennel and wishes he had gone to more.

“It was electric. It was intense,” White said. “It definitely makes the experience inside the Kennel something worth talking about.”

The Pavilion felt most like the Kennel during a two-minute stretch toward the beginning of the second half. The energy started to grow when Corey Kispert hit a 3-pointer to put the Zags up 50-42. Then Filip Petrusev blocked a shot about a minute later, and Admon Gilder scored a layup in transition.

The cheering culminated when Joel Ayayi knocked down another 3-pointer before a commercial break. The Zags coasted to a 94-81 win from there and led by more than 20 at times.

Maddie Hueske, a 2019 Gonzaga graduate who now works in the admissions department, said she, was missing the energy in the student section but thought the watch party would be the next best thing. She missed out on employee tickets for the game because she was sick.

“A lot of my co-workers slept in McCarthey Sunday night” to get tickets at 7 a.m., Hueske said.

“So much of what I like about the Kennel – the crowd, the energy – I think will be here, too,” she said. “I like the Zag pride in Spokane.”