About 1,000 bodies strained against the barricades along Bruin Walk on Saturday morning.

Students – packed like sardines – shoved and scrambled as their collective momentum crashed into the narrow fences sectioning the official line for UCLA men’s basketball’s regular-season finale against USC.

Somewhere in the frenzy, a student went down.

In a later interview, the student, who was granted anonymity for fear of retaliation, said he fought to stand beneath the bodies swarming over him.

Meanwhile, security guards didn’t take action as chaos unfolded in front of them, watching as the student was swamped by the stampede.

“I’m trying to get up, people are literally just stepping on me,” said the second-year student. “The whole time, the security guard is standing there staring, just watching the entire thing happen. Doesn’t try to lift a hand, do anything. … We’re getting literally stepped on on the ground because of their incompetence and lack of care.”

A UCLA Athletics spokesperson described the scene in a statement sent to the Daily Bruin.

“At 9 a.m., students were walked down Bruin Walk in an orderly fashion,” UCLA Athletics said in a written statement. “There was an instance of disorder in a more narrow area of Bruin Walk, which was resolved quickly.”

Lined have opened. Chaos on Bruin Walk. pic.twitter.com/wxsGoBtUln

— Ira Gorawara (@IraGorawara) March 8, 2025

The mayhem that gradually spiraled out of control may have been the price of UCLA Athletics’ ban, announced Thursday afternoon, on overnight camping for one of the season’s most anticipated games. In years past, students set up tents outside Pauley Pavilion, forming an orderly line that enveloped the UCLA campus.

But the enforcement of Time, Place and Manner policies wiped out a beloved tradition.

[Related: UCLA Athletics announces ban on overnight camping ahead of USC matchup]

Despite the official line not opening up till 9 a.m. Saturday, students initiated a pre-line on The Hill before sunrise.

The line remained relatively structured for hours – snaking up from the entrance of De Neve Plaza toward De Neve Holly. But at 7:45 a.m., a security guard told the crowd that the unofficial line was meaningless, transforming the patience and order of the early morning into pandemonium.

“It gave everybody the green light to try to rush to the front or to find secret spots that they could blitz from,” said Noah Campuzano, a fourth-year education and social transformation student. “Everybody from the top of The Hill came sprinting down, crowding the whole sidewalk to the front. It was buzzing there for a while, and once it hit 8:45, it turned into every man for himself.”

The last-minute strayers’ arrival at the front of the line was met with a chorus of boos. Those who braved the dead of night now stood shoulder-to-shoulder with latecomers.

From the other side of Bruin Walk, here’s the mob of students waiting to enter the white barricades. It’s complete chaos.

One student said, “If you’ve seen the lines at Disneyland, this is worse.”

Others are worried for something of a stampede to unfold and potential injuries. pic.twitter.com/wmLcrVrORx

— Ira Gorawara (@IraGorawara) March 8, 2025

Shortly before 9 a.m., a security guard’s voice boomed through a megaphone, telling the crowd that she would be “walking” the hoard of students down toward Bruin Walk.

But students said they were all but convinced of her proposed strategy.

“I don’t think there’s going to be any walking or any orderly behavior,” Brady Schenck, a second-year statistics and data science student, said right after the announcement. “It’s going to be everyone just pushing and shoving each other, trying to get a good spot. There’s not really any real structure at all.”

Other security guards, meanwhile, seemed either unaware or unprepared for the impending chaos.

“As best as we can, we’ll get them to come over and start the line down here,” one usher said. “We’ll do the best we can. Hopefully, students will just treat each other with kindness as fellow students.”

Yet that hope did little to ease the frustration of students wondering whether any real plan existed.

Though UCLA Athletics said in a statement that security and event staff were in communication with students in the pre-line starting at 1 a.m., first-year political science student Colin Kraft was among those baffled by the security’s apparent cluelessness.

“I’m genuinely very confused as to what the plan was because when we would ask security guards what was happening, they would act as if they didn’t know what was going on, and they were just as in the dark as we were,” Kraft said. “There was only about three or four security guards to about 1,000 students. So they felt helpless before it even started.”

As a security guard gestured for students to enter the line, any lingering sense of order vanished as students charged the barricades at 8:58 a.m.

“There was no regulation at all,” said fourth-year molecular, cell and developmental biology student Emma Varnell. “Their idea of not letting people camp out on this side was really a horrible idea. We all thought we were going to get trampled. So dangerous for all these students and for the people that have been waiting for forever.”

The university cited TPM safety policies as a reason for banning overnight camping. However, for many students, the previous system provided structure. The new one replaced it with a free-for-all.

In response to the chaos, UCLA Athletics said it will reevaluate its policies moving forward.

“As we do each year, we will continue to review our procedures and work with campus partners to provide a first-class gameday experience for students and all fans attending UCLA Athletics events,” the department said in a statement.

But disappointment for many students began well before nearing the gates. A cherished tradition of spending the night in tents and bonding with friends was already stripped without much warning.

“Me and my roommates had been planning this for months – we had gotten mats, we had gotten tents, we had gotten a little grill,” said second-year public affairs and international development student Caleb Sharman. “We were going to be one of the first people in line, and then we just hopped in this morning because the excitement was gone.”

Caeleb Bouey, a second-year chemical engineering student, added that camping out was a deeply ingrained and eagerly anticipated event for UCLA students.

“It ruined a great tradition. It was one of the best traditions that UCLA had in terms of the USC game,” he said. “Taking it away is kind of just killing a total tradition. And obviously, as we’re seeing, there’s no real better plan.”