When students who’ve never attended a Loyola men’s volleyball game try and picture the atmosphere inside Gentile Arena in the moments before the first serve, they probably fall short in their imagined expectations.
No, there aren’t tumbleweeds blowing across the court during timeouts. The student section isn’t a ghost town. Despite a disappointing 5-10 start to the season, Loyola is pulling its highest per-game attendance since the 2017 season, with an average of 740 fans packing into Gentile on game nights. That’s more than the team averaged during the 2015 season, the year it captured a NCAA title.