Crowds have sucked this year.

[warriors1991]

+1

BTW - what happened to Chicos?

Don't want to get off topic but does someone seriously know where Chicos went? His rants drove me nuts but I did know the dude in college and I wondered if he quit or was lifetime-banned here.

That said, I thought the L'ville crowd was the best all year but still wasn't a great showing from the students. Don't quite understand why the student section has thinned in recent years. I thought last night's was about what I'd expect for a S. Florida weeknight game.

[reinko]

Never Ending Scoop Topics:
1. The crowd attendance sucks
2. The student attendance sucks
3. The crowd won't wear gold
4. Tom Crean sucks
5. Let's restart football
6. Warriors
7. Does a walk-on use a scholarship
8. Marquette to NIT (after any loss)
9. Chicos
10. MU can't recruit bigs

Recently Retired:
11. Non-conference strength of schedule sucks

[tower912]

Outside of Syracuse, the Big East just isn't very good this year.  And the sexual assaults have impacted the way both students and fans view some MU players.

And even though we all hate Crean, he was tireless when it came to PR for MU bball.  He was on an ego trip, but he did connect with the student body.

Weak sauce.   Other teams have had players that had run-ins with the law.   My college career straddled the Majerus-Dukiet teams and I never missed a home game that was played while I was on campus.   The student section would mock the sweater vests for their lack of energy, not the other way around.    And those teams had weed users, a-holes, girlfriend beaters, doofuses on them.     I will grant you that Crean worked very hard at PR.   Also, with the transition to an AD, there may be a lull before new enticements to students get them to the game.    Maybe it is that there are too many other entertainment options and that mile walk is too long for modern students.   I don't know.   

[Tugg Speedman]

Students and fans should be upset with lack of support for this top twenty team.  Barely 10 thousand tonight.  Lame

Attendance was 13,693
http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=320240269

That's 2,000 more than the old arena held back in the pre-historic days.

Seriously, we have been through this over and over and every one of these threads are wrong.

MU draws THOUSANDS more a game than 'nova, Georgetown and St. Johns.  We play ALL our games in an NBA arena. 'nova Georgetown and St. Johns only play selected games in an NBA arena because they cannot draw enough interest.    We get 13,700 to freaking USF on a Tuesday night.  GU and 'nova are jealous of our fan support as they could never draw that well for USF on a Tuesday night. 

On the first page is a thread noting that Duke is down from 800 to 650 undergrads a game (and they don't have to  pay for tickets!).  We are ripping our student section a new one because they had 1,000 for a South Florida blow-out on a Tuesday night.

Bottom line, MU fan support is terrible but all the other schools are worse.

Edit:  Added the part on red later

[chapman]

Sobelman's on campus has taken a lot of the student crowd away, through grease fatigue or laziness to get off the couch from obesity.  Agree that PR is down from the Crean days - what do they pay Nelligan Sports for exactly?  They haven't exactly done anything different in the past decade so hopefully they come cheap.  And agree that no lower seats should be empty-give it away before letting it go unused.

[tower912]

84, you make a very good point.    The games I went to were in the 11K seat Mecca.   It did lend itself to a noisier atmosphere.    The BC is a bad NBA arena.    Attendance is higher.    The students still need to bring the funk all of the time, though, and not just when the cameras are pointed at them.   

[jsglow]

Sorry I missed the game last night.  I was on a plane flying home to Chicago.  It was only my third 'miss' of the year.  And I drive 100+ miles each way to get to the BC.

I've actually been reasonably pleased with the student section this year.  The only real BEast test was the Louisville game as almost all of the kids had arrived back in town by then.  Games over Christmas break always suffer and a Tuesday against USF is a fairly easy 'skip' game.

The one thing I don't quite understand are students who fail to purchase the ticket package at all.  For $125 a year (up from $99 which might have been a mistake), a kid gets a great deal of entertainment value with his friends.  

[77fan88warrior]

How many student tickets did MU sell this year?

[GGGG]

Outside of Syracuse, the Big East just isn't very good this year.  And the sexual assaults have impacted the way both students and fans view some MU players.

Is that another nugget from your niece?

[Tugg Speedman]

And the sexual assaults have impacted the way both students and fans view some MU players.

Can someone refresh my memory here ...

Who was arrested for sexual assault?  I remember no one being arrested
Who was investigated for sexual assault?  I remember no one being investigated for sexual assault?
Who was investigated for sexual harassment?  I remember that investigation but nothing came of it.
I also remember a player getting a city ticket for an incident at a Quiznos but last time I checked that was not sexual harassment.

Conclusion - attendance is down because of something that did not happen?

[jaybilaswho?]

South Florida on a tuesday. its always empty.

Not to take this in a political discussion AT ALL, but don't forget the State of the Union address last night. I know that 1 guy in our season ticket group did not go to the game becuase of it.

[eroc830]

Did we have more than 650 students at the game?  If so, the student section is better than Duke!

+1

[AZWarrior]

Never Ending Scoop Topics:
1. The crowd attendance sucks
2. The student attendance sucks
3. The crowd won't wear gold
4. Tom Crean sucks
5. Let's restart football
6. Warriors
7. Does a walk-on use a scholarship
8. Marquette to NIT (after any loss)
9. Chicos

Recently Retired:
10. Non-conference strength of schedule sucks

Well, I am still upset about the name change.....

[Aughnanure]

Attendance was 13,693
http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=320240269

That's 2,000 more than the old arena held back in the pre-historic days.

Seriously, we have been through this over and over and every one of these threads are wrong.

MU draws THOUSANDS more a game than 'nova, Georgetown and St. Johns.  We play ALL our games in an NBA arena. 'nova Georgetown and St. Johns only play selected games in an NBA arena because they cannot draw enough interest.    We get 13,700 to freaking USF on a Tuesday night.  GU and 'nova are jealous of our fan support as they could never draw that well for USF on a Tuesday night. 

On the first page is a thread noting that Duke is down from 800 to 650 undergrads a game (and they don't have to  pay for tickets!).  We are ripping our student section a new one because they had 1,000 for a South Florida blow-out on a Tuesday night.

Bottom line, MU fan support is terrible but all the other schools are worse.

Edit:  Added the part on red later

All of Georgetown's games are played in the Verizon Center.

[4everwarriors]

Not to take this in a political discussion AT ALL, but don't forget the State of the Union address last night. I know that 1 guy in our season ticket group did not go to the game becuase of it.

This is the most compelling argument to attend the game.

[Tugg Speedman]

selected BE attendance numbers from last year.

#11 Marquette Golden Eagles - 280,545 - 15,586 - 18 games
#25 Georgetown Hoyas - 177,448 - 12,675 - 14 games
#32 Connecticut Huskies - 196,671 - 11,569 - 17 games
#38 Villanova Wildcats - 178,692 - 10,511 - 17 games

If we suck, the rest have already swallowed.

(FYI - we were third in the BE is attendance behind #2 Syracuse and #3 Louisville)

[Lennys Tap]

Not to take this in a political discussion AT ALL, but don't forget the State of the Union address last night. I know that 1 guy in our season ticket group did not go to the game becuase of it.

Has the rest of the group thought about an intervention?

[96warrior]

Noticed this at the Louisville game and heard it again last night...what is up with the student section chanting during OUR players' free throws?? Jae missed the front end of a double bonus shot and right as he released the ball, there was a loud group cheer. I can't imagine there were enough USF fans there to make that much noise heckling a free throw shooter.

[StillAWarrior]

Not to take this in a political discussion AT ALL, but don't forget the State of the Union address last night. I know that 1 guy in our season ticket group did not go to the game becuase of it.

He must really like campaign speeches.

[dwaderoy2004]

Noticed this at the Louisville game and heard it again last night...what is up with the student section chanting during OUR players' free throws?? Jae missed the front end of a double bonus shot and right as he released the ball, there was a loud group cheer. I can't imagine there were enough USF fans there to make that much noise heckling a free throw shooter.

In that instance, Anderson had just fouled out for USF and they were doing the "left, right, sit down!" bit.  Anderson sat down just as Jae shot the free throw, and the crowd yelled "sit down" at that moment.  If it was planned by Anderson, it was a smart move, but our crowd has to pay attention to the situation.

[monkeyman34]

All of the BE games up until last nights game were during break.  That takes away roughly 1/2 of the students from being on campus.  The announced attendance may have been 13k last night, but there is no way more than 10k were there.

[AZWarrior]

Has the rest of the group thought about an intervention?

Friends don't let friends watch the (oh wait, I'm getting off topic....)

[tower912]

Not to take this in a political discussion AT ALL, but don't forget the State of the Union address last night. I know that 1 guy in our season ticket group did not go to the game becuase of it.

Geez, I am probably as liberal as anyone on this board and I was following the game on-line rather than watch the SOTU.    Where are his priorities?

[Golden Avalanche]

Firstly, it's a 7:00pm game against a traditionally subpar opponent on a Tuesday, everybody needs to adjust their expectations accordingly.

Are you claiming that a 7.00 P.M. start is somehow bad to attract fans?

And why is Tuesday bad for attracting fans? Forgive me, but I can't imagine that many Milwaukeeans have bulging diaries on the day to the point where the crowd turns out around 10,000.

I get South Florida isn't sexy, especially to a city that is bandwagon-centric after our core base of 10-11,000, but when does the mindset change from wanting to see a good opponent to wanting to see my own team regardless of opponent?

[mu_hilltopper]

I've been a long time observer of the BC, its attendance, and general atmosphere.

There's no doubt that the general crowd involvement/excitement has gone down over the years.    There are some obvious reasons.  

The expectations of MU fans are waaaay different in 2012 than they were in 1990, 1995, 2000, etc.  Now, we expect MU to beat up on inferior teams, without fan "involvement."   Fans expect MU to beat USF, SJU, Seton Hall (arguable), Cincy, Rutgers, not to mention Winthrop, Jacksonville, etc .. so BC people are not into the game, hanging on each bucket or rebound.  

There are only a few "special" games each year, where the BC is (more) electrified.  The UW game is a good example (every other year.)

Add to that .. I'll bet the 10 center sections' average age is many years older than it was in 2000.   The older you get, the more likely you are to just sit and observe the game.  -- Even worse .. All the fresh new, excitable and potentially loud Season Ticket Holders are shelved in the sleepy upper deck.  By the time they get seats in the lower bowl, they've been conditioned to sit on their hands.

And I wish that all weren't so .. I like the on-floor basketball, but I'm really there for the excitement, the atmosphere .. the games I enjoy the most are the ones I have shouted the most.   There are plenty of opportunities for fans to make noise, I am surprised and disappointed at how infrequently they do.