If you’re sitting in Charles Koch Arena Thursday morning, it’s empty. Completely silent. The ghosts of Shockers past are strolling around one of college basketball’s greatest sanctuaries. 

The silence is unusual, especially after how loud it was Wednesday night. 

Why was it empty? Head coach Gregg Marshall gave the Shockers a day off after their 63-43 victory over conference foe Bradley. It’s the team’s first day off since Dec. 27, Marshall said.

The crowd’s deafening noise made Dave Reynolds, the Bradley Braves’ beat writer going on 24 years, tweet: “I’ve not heard this decibel level in the Roundhouse in years. This is a blast!”

Ironically enough, this praise comes one month and one day after Marshall, Darron Boatright (Senior Associate AD) and John Brewer (Senior Associate AD/External Operations) distributed a letter to the student section at the Saint Louis game at Intrust Bank Arena. It was a letter asking students to use their ticket if they picked one up. That was Dec. 6. 

On Dec. 11, Marshall said he wasn’t too worried about the student section. “If we keep winning, they’ll come,” he said. 

He was right. The Roundhouse was packed for the matchup with Bradley.

By now, most Shocker fans should know what happened. With the game knotted up at 29-all, a bad charge call on Fred VanVleet and a moving screen called on Rashard Kelly gave those in attendance more than they paid for.

The foul calls fired up Marshall, which fired up the fans, which fired up the team.

Sometimes people forget about “the sixth man” — fans that go so crazy they influence the outcome of the game.

“I usually feed off our coach or the atmosphere as far as our fans,” junior guard Ron Baker said. “So, I think that’s what sparked our run in the second half.”

Did it ever.

Baker’s back-to-back threes threw Shocker fans into an uncontainable frenzy.

“The score was still just 37-32, but you would’ve thought we were down 15,” Bradley head coach Geno Ford said after the game.

Ford gave two factors for the outcome of the game.

The first factor: Wichita State has explosive guard play — guards that can hit threes.

The second: the crowd.

“I’ve been in college basketball 22 years and I’ve only been one other place that I would say has a similar atmosphere to here,” Ford said. “At this point, I’ve been in all of them. You’ve played a game everywhere. It’s non-comparable, a game at North Carolina and a game here.”

Back in January 2013, Jason King, now with Bleacher Report, wrote an article for ESPN ranking the top college basketball venues. His rank for Wichita State’s Charles Koch Arena: No. 7.

Since then, King said he’d rank Koch Arena even higher. Probably top five.

“Wichita State’s slogan is always play angry,” King said. “I think their fans kind of — I don’t want to say they come to the game angry — but they come to the game intent on making life hell for the opponent.” 

That makes sense, considering Ford said it’s either No. 1 or No. 1A in the nation.

“It’s hard to put a tangible number on what the crowd’s worth,” Ford said. “I mean, I know you can grab a stat sheet and say, ‘Hey, Baker averages 15 and VanVleet averages 13 or whatever.’ I don’t know what the crowd averages, but it isn’t zero. I can tell you that.”