Ahead of Florida men’s basketball’s matchup against Auburn on Jan. 24, Kendall Mehlenbacher, a junior health sciences student at the University of Florida, and her two friends spent their Friday far from what one would expect from a college student.
Instead of hitting the Gainesville nightlife or wandering the UF campus, Mehlenbacher and her friends spent the night before the SEC matchup sleeping on the concrete floor outside of the O’Connell Center’s student entrance on Museum Road.
The 20-year-old said that because the University Athletic Association did not allow students to obtain permits to put up tents, Mehlenbacher and her friends spent the night battling the cold without a cover. She had a blanket, pillow, eye mask and headphones to help her sleep through the night, and while it was not the most comfortable setup, the opportunity to get into the game was enough for her.
“When am I ever gonna have the opportunity to sit courtside 20 games a season with my best friends?” Mehlenbacher said. “That’s never gonna happen again, so to me, I love the Gators, I love our team, and why would I not?”
She is not the only one who is willing to sacrifice time and comfort to secure a seat for a game.
Ahead of each men’s basketball home game, hundreds of students camp outside the O’Connell Center’s Gate 3 student entrance. They hope to be one of 500 people to receive a band to secure their spot in the 700-person student section known as the Rowdy Reptiles in the lower bowl of the stadium, placed behind the broadcast booth in center court.
This dedication to Florida men’s basketball over the last few seasons has helped the Gators make the O’Connell Center one of the toughest places for an away team to play in. Over the last three seasons, the Gators posted a 39-3 record at home, including their most recent home win against then-No. 23 Alabama 100-77 on Feb. 1.
“We have incredible fan support,” Florida head coach Todd Golden said. “It’s a healthy marriage that way because we have been very successful at home also, so we’ve given them a reason to come out and support us and to their credit, as soon as we showed a little promise in our time here, they got behind us and have given us great home crowds.”
Ahead of the Alabama game, the fans’ devotion to the team was tested as temperatures dropped to 31 degrees Fahrenheit. At around 8 p.m., a line of fans twisted and turned down the ramp from the entrance to the sidewalk on Museum Road.
Isaac Clark, a senior natural resource conservation and wildlife ecology student at UF, was in line for around three hours, securing his spot at the front of the line.
“I love camping out,” the 22-year-old said. “It’s always a great group out here.”
While the UAA allowed the Rowdy Reptiles to pre-band, allowing fans to secure their spot in the student section without battling the cold, some still chose to follow through on the camping experience.
Draden Phillips, a sophomore biology major, and his older relative Casen, who graduated from UF last year, said they wanted to camp out, even if the Rowdy Reptiles were pre-banding and if the weather was as cold as it was.
“This is probably the coldest night Florida has had in a while, so why not spend it outside?” Casen said while sitting in a lawn chair and wrapped in a sleeping bag over his brown fur coat.
The dedication of these fans has not gone unnoticed this season.
Against Auburn on Jan. 24, Florida’s AJ Brown and Cooper Josefsberg surprised the line of students waiting to get in with Raising Cane's chicken tenders. In the following home contest against Alabama on Feb. 1, Florida football head coach John Sumrall showed his love to the fans, handing out boxes of Domino’s Pizza in the 34-degree weather a couple of hours before tipoff.
Sumrall also spent some time with the Rowdy Reptiles during the Auburn game after delivering a speech in front of the crowd during a timeout.
“It was so cool,” said junior international studies student Jenna Hentrich, who was in the Rowdy Reptiles student section and got a selfie with Sumrall during the game. “I just love being down there.”
The Rowdy Reptiles are not just a student section, but a student organization on campus with eight executive board members. Moreover, they are the brains behind the camping operation and the creation of the in-game atmosphere.
Eden Rose, a second-year media, production, management and technology student at UF, works in public relations for the Rowdy Reptiles. The 20-year-old said much of her work comes in creating dirt sheets, a two-sided sheet that serves as a guide to fans in the student section, ensuring that the entire section is in sync with its chants.
On the front side of the sheet are all the Florida chants, such as saying “hell yeah” whenever the public address announcer says it's Florida basketball, or chomping with your hands once the ball goes through the net when a Florida player makes a free throw. On the back side, Rose said, is the “dirt,” or any information the organization can find about opposing players to chant and get into their heads.
For example, Auburn’s Tahaad Pettiford was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol on July 12, so whenever he received the ball, the Rowdy Reptiles chanted “DUI.” In Florida’s recent game against Alabama, the student section chanted “G League Drop Out” to Charles Bediako, who returned to the Crimson Tide after playing professionally in the G League, the minor league of the NBA, for a couple of seasons.
Rose said that to make the dirt sheets for each game, she goes through Instagram profiles, tagged photos and other searches to dig up any information she can on opposing players. One time, she even watched a high school documentary to dig up some dirt.
“They’re definitely pretty fun to make,” she said. “It’s like a whole other world you get to learn about by diving into these players’ back stories."
She added that her favorite chants are opposing players’ dogs, because they do a good job of getting in the athlete's head without crossing the line.
As the students, led by the Rowdy Reptiles, continue to show their dedication to Florida men’s basketball, the Gators players look to feed off that energy and maintain the team’s dominance at home.
“How they show up, staying true to who they are, it’s really cool,” said Florida’s junior center Rueben Chinyelu.“I hype them up because they get us going. Showing up, chanting, being alive for us – it's a beautiful thing for me. I love it.”
Contact Jeffrey Serber at Jserber@alligator.org. Follow him on X @JeffreySerber.
Jeffrey is the spring 2026 men's basketball beat reporter and a second-year journalism sports & media major with a media, management and production minor. In his free time, he enjoys hanging out with friends and family, and rooting for the Miami sports teams
