Hundreds of Bruins crept out of their dorms Tuesday at midnight, ready to participate in an annual tradition.

The students rushed to the Intramural Field, forming a line that they would wait in for hours to secure spots in the student section of Pauley Pavilion to watch the UCLA men’s basketball game against the University of Southern California on Tuesday.

UCLA Athletics announced in a Feb. 17 email that it would allow students to line up on the IM field as early as Tuesday at midnight. However, it added in the email that it would not allow tents or furniture of any kind, besides foldable chairs.

Students could leave and return to the line so long as a member of their group remained in line, UCLA Athletics said in the email.

[Related: UCLA eases line up guidelines ahead of men’s basketball game against USC]

Some students played board games and tossed volleyballs and footballs to pass the time. Others used the night as a chance to catch up on schoolwork, reviewing lecture notes with their headphones on.

Donnobhain Haertel, a third-year applied mathematics and statistics and data science student, said Tuesday was his first time waiting in line for a student section ticket.

“I could go buy a ticket,” Haertel said. “But I’m excited to be with the fans down, down close and supporting the Bruins. I think we got it in the bag this year.”

UCLA Athletics did not allow students to line up overnight ahead of the 2025 UCLA-USC basketball game, citing Time, Place and Manner policies, which ban overnight camping and the use of tents on university property, unless approved beforehand. Students were instead allowed to line up for tickets at 9 a.m. of game day.

However, the ban did not stop students from creating an unofficial line that snaked up the Hill before 9 a.m. Videos showed students then pushing past each other and rushing to secure a spot in the actual line outside Pauley Pavilion at 9 a.m.

[Related: UCLA’s finalized Time, Place and Manner policy alters public expression guidelines]

Before 2025, UCLA basketball fans have camped outside the basketball arena ahead of the annual rivalry, bringing tarps, sleeping bags and chairs to lines that have historically stretched up Bruin Walk to Charles E. Young Drive and down to the Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center.

Lauren Dace, a third-year anthropology student, said she appreciated UCLA Athletics’ coordination of this year’s line.

“We camp out every year,” she said. “This year is the first one where it’s been organized through the school and they’re trying to keep it contained.”

Dace added that frequent changes to camping guidelines have not taken away from the fun of waiting in line.

“You never know what’s going to happen,” Dace said. “My first year, we got a sign from the Den, so I have that poster up in my room. … The team walks by, or the football coaches come by and they feed you, so then we meet people.”

Audrey Parker, a first-year international development studies and political science student, said she and her friends stood in line on Bruin Walk for two hours to get onto the IM field, where students could wait in line to get a ticket. Her group progressed from the Acosta Athletic Training Complex to the outskirts of Pauley Pavilion before heading back to their dorms, she added.

Parker said she believes there were not enough UCLA Athletics personnel checking students in to the IM field.

“They’re not running the line well enough,” she said. “I would be OK sleeping on the football field right now. I could be asleep if they were moving the line faster, but we were sitting on the concrete for two hours.”

For Dace, the campout mattered more than the game itself – which UCLA won 81-62.

“It’s just the adventure of doing it,” Dace said, “The game – that part’s fun too – but just doing it all together, playing games, telling stories all night, it’s just fun.”