Twenty-nine alcohol-related calls to the Marquette University Police Department. Out of those, 14 hospitalized students. 47 confiscated BORGs. One totaled car. And to cap the day off, a 69-77 men’s basketball loss to the University of Connecticut.

National Marquette Day 2025 left quite a heavy wake.

“I don’t think I saw a garbage can between campus and the Fiserv Forum that didn’t have somebody hunched over it,” Kaleb Rondorf, a senior in the College of Business Administration, said.

Unlike the afternoon games of years prior, Marquette men’s basketball played at 7 p.m. on NMD 2025, giving students the entire day to consume alcohol before tipoff. With the extra time, students flocked to an annual party in the alley at the 800 block of 17th Street. University leaders estimated there were 1,000 students in attendance — roughly nine percent of the student body.

William Lake, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, was one of those students at the alley last year.

“It was loud, it was fun, people were definitely drinking,” he said.

But he remembers the party breaking up earlier than previous years because of “outrageous activity,” including vandalism and the destruction of a student’s car.

Erin Gannon, dean of students, said last year’s NMD was a “confluence of a lot of things happening at the very same time.” It became clear to the university that the party needed to be broken up by campus police because unsafe activity was taking place. But while the party was breaking up, she said, students were already at “really extreme and really dangerous” levels of intoxication.

“That resulted in hundreds of students going back to their residences extremely intoxicated, carrying their BORGs (black out rage gallons) with them back into the halls,” Gannon said. “It created this emergency situation where all of the things that needed to be attended to at one time were overwhelming to the systems.”

Campus police bringing in additional officers

This year, MUPD Assistant Chief of Police Jeff Kranz said, the department will bring in additional uniformed and non-uniformed officers to ensure “everyone can enjoy the day safely.” He said campus police have been working both internally and with the university to prepare for NMD.

On Jan. 15, a screenshot posted from a dorm floor group chat on Yik Yak — an anonymous social media app — claimed Marquette police officers would be working in plain clothes and ticketing every student they found in possession of alcohol. However, the university responded by deeming the post inaccurate.

In addition to non-uniformed officers, citations will be issued for underage drinking and public drinking — the possession of an open intoxicant on a public street, sidewalk or alleyway — according to a document university spokesperson Kevin Conway sent the Marquette Wire. University staff have also met with off-campus housing partners to discuss potential consequences of hosting large parties without proper safety measures, Conway told the Wire.

Out of all the alcohol-related calls the Marquette University Police Department received on NMD 2025, 14 students – not including those who took themselves to the emergency room – were taken to the hospital from Fiserv Forum or other off-campus locations.

Campus police were overwhelmed by calls and, at one point, there was an hour wait for an ambulance. Marquette staff also had to triage students in the lobbies of dorm halls.

Kranz said the alcohol-related calls were the most challenging part of the day because there was such a high volume of calls made in a short period of time. Duties became very labor-intensive, he said, because instead of one officer handling a group of people like usual, officers had to individually handle each person in medical distress due to overconsumption.

And, Kranz added, it didn’t help that the men’s basketball game took place at night.

“You had more time to drink, and the alcohol calls started coming in for concerns of the health of students,” he said.

After an initial flood of calls, Kranz said, MUPD was able to bring in extra help and create a game plan. He said it took about two hours for the police to get the calls under control, and after that point, things began to slow down drastically.

Though NMD is an outlier when it comes to campus-wide partying, Kranz said, MUPD’s main goal is to keep students safe on such days. However, he said, the police also need help from students on NMD.

“If you see your friend is hitting that level of excess where they’re no longer able to take care of themselves, you need to step in and intervene and take care of them,” he said.

Kranz said he still wants everyone to have fun celebrating the university holiday first and foremost, but his biggest message for students is to stay safe and keep an eye on one another’s wellbeing.

Afternoon tipoff set after previous evening games

The men’s basketball tipoff for NMD has gradually gotten later over the past several years. In 2022, the game started at noon; 1 p.m. in 2023; 5 p.m. in 2024. In 2025, Rondorf said, the later-than-normal 7 p.m. start time contributed to many of the alcohol-related issues.

“People like to start early, and nobody wants to be the person that stops drinking before the game,” he said.

Rondorf, who chooses not to drink, said most students tend to ease off drinking after the game, but a later game pushes that timeframe hours back.

Marquette Athletics communicated with scheduling networks that its goal for 2026 was to have an afternoon NMD game, Gannon said. While much of the NCAA men’s basketball schedule has to do with TV time and Fiserv Forum availability, she said, the university still has some influence over the times games are played.

This year’s NMD men’s basketball game has a 1 p.m. tipoff time, significantly earlier than that of the year prior.

Per Fiserv Forum’s code of conduct, fans at the arena should expect an environment where “guests will consume alcoholic beverages in a responsible manner.” Intervention will be handled promptly and safely with implied, intoxicated or underage fans, the code states.

University encourages students to “have a plan”

With a 7 p.m. start time like in 2025, Gannon said, students have much more time to consume alcohol before the tipoff. Many students have the goal of consuming an entire BORG before the start of the men’s basketball game.

Gannon said it’s important for students to have a plan for personal behavior monitoring and harm reduction.

“When people have strategies in mind for monitoring their consumption or keeping their consumption at a risk level that they’re comfortable with, they’re more likely to follow their plan,” she said.

In regard to high-risk alcohol use, Gannon added, the consequences increase the more one consumes. There eventually becomes a risk to safety and personal health, as well as the health and safety of others.

“This is part of adulting, that we have all kinds of rules and laws,” she said. “If you choose not to follow them, there may be risk there.”

Campus leadership encourages respectful behavior

Not only is Marquette concerned about the safety of its students, Gannon said, but also the affect their actions have on peers who chose not to participate in high-risk behaviors. In 2025, for example, partiers stood on and crushed the roof of a student’s car that was parked behind his apartment building in the alley where the party was taking place.

“We also want to make sure that for students who choose not to consume alcohol or choose not to go to parties, that they have events and opportunities to celebrate their Marquette experience separate from what has traditionally been the pervasive narrative,” she said.

Gannon said the holiday can be a fun day for different people to come together and celebrate being part of the Marquette community, and that celebration is visible nationwide.

That’s why, when events such as those of NMD 2025 take place, Gannon said it’s important for students to consider how they’re publicly representing themselves and Marquette.

“We want to make sure that students can study and be successful and do the things that they came here to do, and not have their behaviors or the things they choose to do interfere with other people’s ability to do the same,” she said.

Rondorf said his friends are supportive of his choice to not drink, but others feel social pressure to drink to fit in, especially on NMD. He encourages students who limit their alcohol consumption or choose not to drink to have a conversation with their friends.

Most of the time, he said, people are surprisingly understanding.

“Having that added pressure, and then people constantly offering you drinks and your friends asking you to drink with them obviously it doesn’t make it any easier,” Rondorf said. “It makes it a lot more likely for people to give in to that kind of peer pressure on a day like that.”

With the university’s biggest holiday less than a week away, both students and the university are in the midst of preparing for NMD 2026 — each in their own ways.

This story was written by Mia Thurow. She can be reached at [email protected]. Jack Albright contributed to this report.