November 12, 2019, will go down as one of the most memorable days for me, while working in college athletics. That day, a small school from southern Indiana took down No. 1 University of Kentucky.
I’m of course talking about the men’s basketball team at the University of Evansville, who came out of Lexington, Kentucky with a program defining win. That day will be remembered for a lot of reasons, but I want to tell the story from my perspective and the story of how our UE social media team planed for the unplannable of beating the No. 1 ranked team in the country.
To give some perspective before I jump in. Evansville plays in the Missouri Valley Conference and is located in southern Indiana, around three hours away from Lexington right on the Ohio River. UE is one of the smallest Division I schools in the country enrollment wise, but basketball is huge and in the last two years UE has ranked second in attendance in the MVC.
Now with the background out of the way, I want to take you back to the week of November 4, 2019. Our social media group, comprising myself, Scott Peace, Michael Robertson, Bob Pristash, and Braden Pretzsch were sitting in Scott’s office planning what we were going to do on social media for the game. We knew there was very little chance we would even stay competitive in this game, but we still wanted to have a plan if the unplannable happened… because it’s college basketball and “who knows, right?”
So, we planned everything, because our brand, our school, and our team was on the national stage, and no matter what we needed to be ready. We planned all the jobs from who posted the game day graphic to who tweeted during the game and the tone we wanted to have.
Which all kind of went up in the air once the game time arrived…
It all changed because the team that got off the bus from Evansville had an attitude that we did not plan for. Our team came to play. They walked into Rupp Arena with nothing to lose and a “we ain’t scared” mentality that became the theme of the next few hours and days.
No one was going to beat the Purple Aces that day.
From my seat on the baseline a lot of the plays that night blurred together, but one that stands out and summarizes that night was senior K.J. Riley’s rebound putback with 1:42 left in the game. K.J. made the layup and turned around and yelled at the top of his lungs and flexed at the nation. K.J. and the rest of the team were not messing around and I think that was the moment I felt like it could happen…
Because with less than two minutes left in the game… it was still UK. They were still at home and ranked No. 1, so they could make a run at any point, but they didn’t.
The game ended with a missed three by UK’s Maxey and things went to the next level.
Our video guy Braden and I get up from the baseline and just pointed our cameras at anything purple. After a lot of hugs and some tears, the team made it back to the locker room to celebrate. * Cue water bottle jumping celebration. *
I walked out (a little damp) from the locker room and it all hit me. I was able to enjoy the moment for approximately 12 seconds before the realization that we had a platform on social media to tell the nation (and the world) who this small school in Indiana was.
Capturing the moment in the bottle was really what we had to do. Posting ticket deals (s/o Jake Hill and Jacob Shelton), bandwagon applications, pep-rally information, and the opportunity to meet the team off the bus were all things that had to happen before we left the arena. So, we got to work and acted like a larger school and athletic department (channeling some P5 mentality).
Racing down the highway in Michael’s car (safely) trying to beat the bus back to campus we became the center of college basketball. Capturing over 2.3 million impressions on Twitter in 48 hours and adding almost 2,000 followers overnight. From pep-rallies to ESPN interviews to hundreds of students meeting the team off the bus, it was just a lot. I don’t think I ate a real meal during that 24-hour span, but it was worth it to be a part of history and tell UE’s story.
Seeing the people, I worked with every day have tears in their eyes brings it all home. UE beating No. 1 UK was unplannable because it was UK, but it was unplannable because nothing close had happened at UE in years and the amazing hardworking people at UE had been waiting for that moment for a very very long time.
- Emily McMillan (@emily_mcm16)
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