In early 2023, Cameron Koffman and David Pochapin — two friends in their mid-twenties who never set foot in a Long Island University classroom — went looking for a college basketball team to call their own. They found the LIU Sharks, a Brooklyn program then mired in a three-win season and playing in front of nearly empty bleachers at the Steinberg Wellness Center.

Rather than pick a winner, they built one a following. They claimed their corner of the gym as "The Reef" and invented "Fins Up" — a chant in which fans press their palms together and raise them overhead like a shark's dorsal fin cutting through the crowd. What began as two guys being loud became a movement: the seats filled, the chant spread, and the Sharks suddenly had a fan base.

By 2026 the bit had become a genuine March moment. LIU won the Northeast Conference, finished 24–10, and danced into the NCAA Tournament as the No. 16 seed in the West, drawing No. 1 Arizona in San Diego on March 20. Koffman and Pochapin packed up The Reef and took it on the road, leading "Fins Up" across the country for their adopted Sharks. Arizona won 92–58 — but the loudest fins in college basketball belonged to two guys who don't even go there.