Hunter Wilson/Daily News Nine-year-old Sylvia Kirkwood holds a sign Friday as she waits for the Western Kentucky men’s basketball team to arrive from Phoenix at the Bowling Green-Warren County Regional Airport. About 100 Hilltopper faithful congregated to welcome the team back after Thursday night’s dramatic Sweet 16 loss to No. 1 seed UCLA.

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With a trip to the Sweet 16 and the second-most wins in a season in school history, Western Kentucky University’s basketball team saw great success in the NCAA Tournament.

The subsequent nationwide exposure and public response give school administrators a reason to believe that the Hilltoppers’ run can be translated into off-the-court success.

Though it’s difficult to quantify the immediate dividends of a deep run in the tournament for the university at large, several WKU officials forecast an increase in student applications and alumni contributions resulting directly from the Hilltoppers’ two victories and their spot in the tournament’s second weekend.

“I anticipate (the postseason success) will have a favorable impact as it causes people watching us to pay attention to our excellence overall, not just on the basketball team,” university provost Barbara Burch said. “I think we have been deserving of the attention we’re getting, but sometimes something unique and special has to happen.”

Burch said she and other administrators have received dozens of e-mails from colleagues and friends at other universities, congratulating WKU on its accomplishment, and a recruiter traveling to advertise the university to English as a Second Language students has found that the tournament has made WKU a known entity beyond American borders.

Tom Hiles, executive director of the WKU Foundation and vice president for Institutional Advancement, said he anticipated annual giving by alumni to increase due to the reams of press and exposure the basketball team has received in the past couple weeks.

“When you see the articles in newspapers across the country, that’s an opportunity to showcase the university in a different light,” Hiles said.

The phenomenon of a university’s memorable athletic performance on a public stage resulting in increased enrollment and giving is not necessarily new. While speaking about WKU’s prospects for success, Hiles referenced the “Flutie Factor,” alluding to the 16 percent increase in applications to Boston College the year after BC quarterback Doug Flutie’s memorable winning touchdown pass in a game against the University of Miami in 1984.

“From a national standpoint, your institution isn’t as prominently displayed if you’re an alumnus in Las Vegas or Washington, D.C., or even St. Louis,” Hiles said.

Hiles stopped short of saying that the exposure would help WKU achieve its stated goal, unveiled last year, of $200 million in gifts and pledges ahead of the 2012 deadline, but did anticipate that the gap toward achieving that goal will narrow significantly.

In a media-rich age, becoming the top story of the tournament can make an impression worldwide. And - for a couple days, at least - that’s what WKU was. Newspaper features in USA Today profiling Ty Rogers and in the New York Times chronicling the Hilltoppers’ basketball tradition, an analysis on Bloomberg.com of the potential financial windfall about to hit WKU - plus videos of Rogers’ winning 3-pointer over Drake from nearly every angle - all have the collective effect of making the general public aware of the university.

“As far as free publicity for your school goes, it does not get any better than Ty Rogers’ shot,” said Allan Hall, a WKU marketing professor who joined nearly 100 fans at the Bowling Green-Warren County Regional Airport on Friday night to greet the team as its plane arrived from Phoenix. “People in London, North Carolina, upstate New York have e-mailed me to ask if the ‘WKU’ they’re hearing about is the WKU where I work.”

Bob Edwards, vice president of university relations for WKU, said the school has a chance to mirror the successes of Gonzaga and Xavier, two other lower-profile schools who have built their enrollment and endowment thanks to exposure caused by repeated NCAA Tournament appearances.

“Those two schools are consistently getting into the tournament, when 10, 12 years ago, many people had no idea where those schools were located or maybe even how to pronounce their names correctly,” Edwards said.

Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., has appeared in 10 consecutive tournaments, while Xavier University in Cincinnati has played in seven of the past eight, making two appearances in the Elite Eight. Alumni contributions and enrollment increased at both institutions, with Gonzaga opening the $25 million McCarthey Athletic Center in 2004 and Xavier able to show off the $50 million Cintas Center, which opened in 2000.

“Every year hundreds of schools set up tables with recruitment videos and brochures, but if prospective students don’t know who you are, you’re behind the curve and you need to catch up a little bit,” Edwards said.

Donations to WKU’s Annual Fund, which helps finance academic departments and university scholarships, are expected to come in at a greater rate, according to Hiles, who added that a donor based in Atlanta has pledged a six-figure donation for the men’s basketball program that will be officially announced this spring

“It’s great to have the Sweet 16 coverage, especially when we already have a tradition of strength in basketball and a tradition of giving by our donors,” Hiles said. “We’ve been grateful to our alumni for the tradition of giving they’ve built, and we want to use this run to build off that.”