A collaborative effort between Saluki athletics and Greek life hopes to take school spirit to a new level.

The Saluki Basketball Challenge is a competition between fraternities and sororities to see who can get the most members to attend six select home basketball games this semester. Four plaques will be awarded at the end of the competition.

Nicole Sack, the marketing graduate assistant for Saluki Athletics, said they are always trying to get students more involved.

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“One of the first things I thought when I got the job was why aren’t we working specifically with Greek life?” she said.

Bryce Webster, president of the Inter-Greek council, said they always invite different campus leaders to speak at its meetings. He said they invited Athletic Director Mario Moccia to its meeting and soon the “Inter-Greek Council Basketball Challenge” was formed.

Sack said there are a total of six games in the competition: five men’s games and one women’s game.

“This keeps the level of interest up, rather than telling the members to attend every game,” She said.

Sack said Greek life makes it a more fun atmosphere. The fraternity and sorority with the most members signed in at that game is announced at halftime.

The categories consist of: one large fraternity with 20 or more members, one small fraternity with 19 or fewer members, one large sorority with 30 or more members and one small sorority with 19 or fewer members. Each category will all win a plaque at the end of the competition.

The Nov. 1 and Jan. 14 games were the first two of the competition. Sack said turnout for the first game was not high because it was not promoted enough.

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However, she said the second game was huge improvement.

“We had over 150 Greeks at the last game,” she said. “It was phenomenal.”

Jonathan Baquet, president of Tau Kappa Epsilon, said half of the student section was made up of Greeks.

“It was a real success,” Baquet said. “Our fraternity likes to get rowdy during the games.”

At the first game of the competition, one of the members of TKE dressed up as Santa Claus, Baquet said. During the second game another member dressed up in a dog suit.

They intend to bring potential new members of TKE to Wednesday’s game.

Cameron Shulak, president of Alpha Tau Omega, said his fraternity has not attended the games yet, however he encourages not just Greek life to attend, but the entire student body.

Savanna Bednar, member of Sigma Alpha, said she is expecting around 10 to 15 members out of 20 to show up to each game. Sigma Alpha did not make it to the past games but plans to attend the games with the fraternity Alpha Gamma Rho from now on.

So far, Tau Kappa Epsilon is in the lead Sack said. There were about 12 to 15 Greek houses represented at the Jan. 15 game and they hope to continue to get more competitive over time.

Sack said eventually other student groups will be involved as well.

“It was kind of like hitting the low hanging fruit,” she said. “The Greeks are built to compete so getting them involved was an easy way to start.”

The remaining games in the competition are Feb. 8 & 18 and March 1.