For a Sunday morning, Allen Fieldhouse sure was packed yesterday. About 1,250 students crawled out of bed to sign their groups up for the student camping lottery for tonight’s basketball game against the Missouri Tigers.

The drawing is usually done with poker chips, but because of the large turnout, students thought it would be smarter to draw numbers out of a bucket, said Adam Lohoefener, who has been heading the lottery for three years.

The way the lottery is designed, students can form groups of between five and 30 people. Every fifth person in the group gets to draw for their team.

But this year, Lohoefener, Oberlin senior, was afraid there weren’t enough chips to accommodate the number of people who wanted to get into the lottery.

“We only have 300 poker chips, and that would mean that there could be only a maximum of 1,500 people here,” Lohoefener said. “And I am not sure there isn’t more.”

It turns out that they would have been fine using the chips, but Lohoefener said this was the most people he had ever seen come out for the lottery — even for a Missouri game. That’s mainly because there was only one day of camping before the game, so students didn’t have many opportunities to add their names to the list later in the week.

Eighty-one groups entered the lottery yesterday morning. Lohoefener said 65 groups entered for the Missouri game last year, and about 70 entered in 2003.

“More people always get involved for Missouri,” Lohoefener said, “but this is definitely one of the larger groups.”

So, out of all of those people, who has the best seats tomorrow night?

Jim Erickson, Overland Park freshman, pulled the number one out of the bucket. He was literally shaking with excitement as his group, ‘Jen Field,’ huddled around him, congratulating him for earning them first pick of seats.

“Right before I walked up there I was thinking, ‘I hope I get to pick,’” Erickson said. “When I knew I was going to, I said a little prayer. When the guy told me I had drawn number one I couldn’t believe it.”

Erickson said ‘Jen Field,’ a group of 25 from Naismith Hall, would sit in the front row of the student section behind the basket closest to the Kansas bench.

This was Erickson’s first time at the lottery, but he said he came especially for the Missouri game.

“This is the biggest game of the year,” Erickson said. “It is a huge rivalry, and it is an awesome game, even though they suck this year.”

That was the general consensus around Allen Fieldhouse yesterday morning. Students forgot that it was 8 a.m. and that they had been out late celebrating the Jayhawks’ big victory against the Texas Longhorns the night before.

Missouri is coming to town.

“I don’t know how to describe it. They just suck,” January Bailey, Wichita senior, said of the Tigers.

Kansas fans want to prove that they are the best in America, and they want to do it against border rival Missouri.

“Could the guy who wore the Tiger suit last year please wear that again?” said Brett Mathews, Shawnee sophomore, referring to a student at last year’s Missouri game. “He needs to bring the sign, ‘I eat poop,’ with him, too.”

— Edited by Azita Tafreshi