Grant Nelson’s parents saw the flood of purple and white takeover the stands partway through Alabama’s NCAA Tournament opener against Charleston. After the Tide knocked off the Cougars, the Nelsons stuck around to watch the last upset of the night with hundreds of screaming No. 12 Grand Canyon students cheering a win over No. 5 St. Mary’s.

“They were saying it was pretty crazy,” Nelson said Saturday. “It’ll be fun to play in that environment.”

More than 200 students that GCU flew out to Spokane Veterans Memorial will be back for the Round of 32 on Sunday. Known as the Havocs, the Lopes faithful will try to will another upset against a four-seed Alabama. The Crimson Tide has faltered in road atmospheres this season, losing just two games in Coleman Coliseum and running into blowouts at Tennessee, Auburn, Florida and Kentucky.

A trend was established. Alabama traded buckets early and eventually settled for bad shots before getting steamrolled. While multiple UA players disagreed with the crowd as a main factor in the losses, the Tide has struggled with in in addition to “playing the scoreboard.”

“So it’s not nothing that we’re not gonna have seen before. In those games (against the Vols, Tigers and Gators), we actually let the crowd get in our heads,” guard Rylan Griffen said. “So we’ve just got to make sure we come in and be like, hey, if they have a big crowd, it’s nothing that we haven’t seen before. … We can control whether we win or not, not the fans. Of course the fans are a big boost always, but at the end of the day, the game is played on the court. They can bring as many people as they want. We brought as many people as we wanted, like we played Tennessee on our home floor had a big crowd and still lost because the game is still played on the court.”

Aaron Estrada called it a “home game” for Grand Canyon. GCU’s campus in Phoenix is over 1,250 miles from Spokane, Washington. But that’s nearly half the 2,200-plus miles that separate tomorrow’s venue from Tuscaloosa. GCU players also said they got a boost from Gonzaga fans in the building rooting against the St. Mary’s team that beat the Bulldogs for a conference title.

Nate Oats pointed out that the crowd bought into highlight moments, which there were plenty of in Friday night’s main event. Grand Canyon forced 13 turnovers for 17 second-chance points and stifled St. Mary’s offense. Alabama is preparing for another run-and-gun type game like it got against Charleston, with Oats joking the winner could be the first to 100 points. Alabama has allowed 102 and 117 points in its last two true road games,

“We’re going to kind of have a road game it seems like, at least with their crowd they had last night. The good thing is we’ve played a lot of tough road games. And again, now we don’t always do it, what we tell our guys the scoreboard is irrelevant to how hard we should be playing,” Oats said. “It’s really a distraction. Well, the crowd should be a distraction, too.”

Alabama is currently a 5.5-point favorite over GCU, per BetMGM. Tip-off is at 6 p.m. Central.

Nick Alvarez is a reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @nick_a_alvarez or email him at [email protected].