The Year of No Student Section?????

[Ari Gold]

At least we dont have a student section like Depaul's where the ADs are offering midcourt seats to opposing fans with student section tickets.  I got student tickets from my brother's friend for the Depaul game, and we got there about 30 minutes before tip when there were hardly any students.  The Depaul Asst AD noticed us in gold and asked us if we wanted to move because "you're having a good season and were really struggling, and it would look better for us to not have gold shirts in the student section."  He upgraded us to third row behind the MU bench!

I actually feel bad for DePaul folks because of this.

[Tugg Speedman]

Georgetown and Villanova are not that far ahead of DePaul.  They only average about 11k/12k a game versus 15k/16k for MU.  Pitts attendance has collapsed this year as well. Do I need to remind everyone that Duke cannot fill it student section, only drawing 650/game.

What we have to realize is ho much worse everyone else is.

[DienerTime34]

Sales numbers don't count the number of people that actually go through the gates. That could very well be well down this year. Fact is, people and the sport are changing. With gigantic HDTV's everywhere, viewing at home can be preferable to sitting in the nosebleeds, which is about half the BC. Also, everytime I stand up and cheer I get told to sit down or get dirty glances. People enjoy sitting in silence, although yelling at the refs is still acceptable.

[mr.MUskie]

Higher prices for tickets = less money for beer = less enthusiasm.

hairy wet cats!  hairy wet cats!  hairy wet cats!!!

[warriorchick]

Does anyone know if they have expanded the student section within the last several years?  If that is the case, it is possible for it to look emptier, even though there are the same number (or even more) students in attendance.

[MUWarriors92]

For as long as my family has had season tickets, I'm pretty sure the student section has stayed the same.

[statnik]

The atmosphere would be helped immensely if the adults did not sit on their hands most of the game.  I went to the DePaul game on Monday night (I'm a senior student ticket holder), and we were standing the whole game toward the back of the lower bowl.  Even in that game, it was hard to get the MU adults (which made up about half the attendance) to get real loud and stand up.  Sure, the student attendance hasn't been great this year, but the students in the lower bowl have still been loud, and to me that's what matters.

[MarsupialMadness]

simple solution

we just need to get bigger faces of erroneous celebrities to make the crowds look fuller.  the ones we have now are clearly too small.

[MUWarriors92]

Sure, the student attendance hasn't been great this year, but the students in the lower bowl have still been loud, and to me that's what matters.

Any possibility we have a full and standing student section for this Saturday and for Georgetown at the end of the season? I mean it's National Marquette Day...that should mean something for the student body.

[Real Chilly Podcast]

my brother is a soph, and he tells me most people didn't buy them because they were $110 and with UNCO, UWM, Vandy, Nova, St.Johns, Pitt, and LVille all during winter break, the price of tickets basically boiled down to USF, SHU, Cinci, RU, and GTown for home BEast games while school is in...

that's a tough sell for a lot of kids who are already strapped for cash, and they know they could buy a friend's ticket for $5 last minute (or for free)

[spartan3186]

I'm not really sure where people have been getting the "too many weekday games" from. Take a look, weekends are Fri-Sun.

Home - 2011/2012
Weekend/Holiday - 8 (4 conference)
Weekday - 8  (5 conference)

Away/Neutral 2011/2012
Weekend/Holiday - 9 (6 Conference)
Weekday - 6 (3 Conference)

Home - 2010/2011
Weekend/Holiday - 10 (4 conference + Wisconsin)
Weekday - 8 (5 conference)

Away/Neutral 2010/2011
Weekend/Holiday - 6 (5 conference)
Weekday - 7 (4 conference + Vandy + Duke + Gonzaga)

The long and the short of it is that both years were identical in terms of conference home games. The main difference this year is that we played a better non-con schedule which included road and tournament weekend games.

You can't either have a lot of cupcake non-con weekend games, or you can have strong non-con and more weekday games.

[Dawson Rental]

This is what I have gathered based on what my daughter has told me (whether it is why she isn't attending a particular game or her acquaintances haven't):

1.  Weeknight games are rough when you have a test the next day or other studying to do.  Weekend games are much easier to plan one's academics around.  As a parent shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for my kid's tuition, I have no issue whatsoever with this excuse.

2.  Money is tight for a lot of kids and their families, and many students find it hard to justify dropping $100 for season tickets when they can't attend every game. It is my understanding they have really jacked up the price in the last couple of years.

3. The online ticket exchange system has created a very efficient secondary market for student tickets.  Some kids didn't buy season tickets because they know for  most of the games they really care about, getting a ticket is as easy as posting on Facebook that you want one, and having a buddy who isn't going email it to you.

3. Right or wrong,  several kids did not buy season tickets in protest of the whole sexual assault issue.

1. hairy wet cats!

2. hairy wet cats!

3. hairy wet cats!

3. hairy wet cats!

[Real Chilly Podcast]

1. hairy wet cats!

2. hairy wet cats!

3. hairy wet cats!

3. hairy wet cats!

+1 for grabbing both 3's

[Mr. Nielsen]

We have about the same amount of weekend games as we did last season.

I was happy to see that many students at the UWM, Vandy & Pitt games during winter break.

3,670 student season-tickets were sold for 2011-12.

[Stronghold]

The student section will never fill up over winter break.  So far our only weekend games of note have been over break so no surprise there.  For the average MU student who likes basketball but ultimately doesn't care one way or the other, Cinci and Georgetown will be the 2 weekend games they actually go to.

[JamilJaeJamailJrJuan]

Any possibility we have a full and standing student section for this Saturday and for Georgetown at the end of the season? I mean it's National Marquette Day...that should mean something for the student body.

I said this in another thread on the same topic and I'll say it again. I am a huge MU fan and watch every single game. I don't feel the need to stand up for an entire game when it is not a huge match-up. I obviously get pumped and want to stand during exciting parts, but I don't feel the need to stand up and act like an assclown the whole time. The upcoming Cincy and GU games I would categorize as a huge match-up. I wouldn't consider the USF, SH or any home game prior to XMAS break game a huge match-up. Every home game from No. Colorado to Louisville was on winter break. Simple explanation.

[muwarrior69]

Back in 1965 I paid 8 dollars for season tickets for 2 reserved seats. There were 16 home games. The best attended game my first 2 seasons was the annual freshman/varsity game. You see Al's freshman recruits beat our varsity those 2 seasons. I recall we averaged about 6-7000 a game in 65-66 and about 8000 in 66-67. By my Junior year basketball tickets were hard to come by and the Old arena was almost totally pack. The Old arean use to have a single seat in each corner of the upper deck and Al would know if we had a sell out when he saw those seats filled.

[WarriorHal]

Here is MU numbers

           National
Year     Rank            Avg Attendance

1970 to 1977   not in top 10

1978        21                10,938

10,938 was a sell-out in the Milwaukee Arena. That's the only reason Marquette didn't rank higher in attendance. During the McGuire years, they probably could have sold 20,000 tickets for virtually every single home-game. Too bad we had such a small arena.

[Tugg Speedman]

Sales numbers don't count the number of people that actually go through the gates. That could very well be well down this year. Fact is, people and the sport are changing. With gigantic HDTV's everywhere, viewing at home can be preferable to sitting in the nosebleeds, which is about half the BC. Also, everytime I stand up and cheer I get told to sit down or get dirty glances. People enjoy sitting in silence, although yelling at the refs is still acceptable.

2.  Money is tight for a lot of kids and their families, and many students find it hard to justify dropping $100 for season tickets when they can't attend every game. It is my understanding they have really jacked up the price in the last couple of years.

So tickets are both so cheap that people buy them as don't go to the games preferring to watch games on big HDTVs.  And Tickets are so expense that students, that pay $30k/year to go the MU cannot find another $100 for them.

Anyone want to argue that tickets are neither too expensive or too cheap and that is the problem.  Then we have all possible angles covered.

[lachance126]

Idk cuz i love marquette

[RideMyBuycks]

I didn't care enough about this post to read all of it, but only 2 games were affected by the lockout. Northern Colorado from 1-3pm I think? And another non-conference cream puff moved a couple of house. Sorry if this was mentioned, but we've only had a select few "premiere games" on the weekend this year. Not speaking for myself, however... Ive been to every home game in my 4 years here. Can't explain the attendance here other than I haven't noticed a change relative to the quality of competition.

[rocky_warrior]

That and the thread about the Warriors.

So let's get this over with... students these days are hairy wet cats. 

/looks forward to a current student telling me how much harder Marquette is than when I attended.
//enjoys that there's no auto-correct for hairy wet cats

//fixed

[Boozemon Barro]

Off topic but AnotherMU84 just a slight correction. While Creighton was not in top 20 national attendance last year (22nd), they have been in the top 20 from 2006-2010 and will most certainly be top 20 this year. FWIW Marquette's student section is 20x better than Creighton's, they just get much better support from the people of Omaha because they are the only show in town.

Only reason I bring it up is because when people were talking about who they would want in a basketball only conference I rarely saw Creighton get mentioned. I think they would be an excellent member of the hypothetical conference.

[Tugg Speedman]

We have about the same amount of weekend games as we did last season.

I was happy to see that many students at the UWM, Vandy & Pitt games during winter break.

3,670 student season-tickets were sold for 2011-12.

Since we repeat this thread over and over, I will repeat my arguments over and over.

Our Student section is 3,670.  Duke's Student section is 1,200
MU undergrad enrollment is 8,000   Duke Undergrad enrollment is 6,500

As this article says, Duke can only sell 650 student tickets.  The rest are sold to the public.
http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/low-attendance-forces-duke-athletics-sell-student-seats

By almost every objective measure, our crowds are much larger than everyone else.

-----------

ok, this thread is is not about the numbers but about some unmeasurable quality of how loud the crowds are.  

Let me give you the real answer ....

1) the crowd expect us to beat inferior quality and its hard to get excited about a Tuesday night game against USF.  

Last year MU played a school record 16 top 25 teams in the same season (per Saragain) and finished 6 and 10 in these games.  In all of D1 ball last year, only Uconn played more (23) thanks to their runs in the BE and NCAA.  For comparison, between 1985 and 1993 (9 years) MU only played a combined total of 15 ranked teams!  

The whining here that "back in the day" the crowds were louder was due to lousy MU teams trying to beat mediocre opponents.  Now we expect mediocre teams to be beaten.  We even expect lower ranked team to be beaten.

2) You want to know why MU students do not act like Ass Clowns?  Maybe because the admission standards are higher now and their are less Ass Clowns in the school.  "Back in the day" MU took anyone and you spent most of your undergrad years "fat drunk and stupid" and proud of it.  Today's MU student study hard and expect to be your boss a few years after graduation.

[warriorchick]

2) You want to know why MU students do not act like Ass Clowns?  Maybe because the admission standards are higher now and their are less Ass Clowns in the school.  "Back in the day" MU took anyone and you spent most of your undergrad years "fat drunk and stupid" and proud of it.  Today's MU student study hard and expect to be your boss a few years after graduation.

+1000

And anyone who refers to a student who skip games to study as a "kitten" is an Ass Clown by definition.  Some day when you are in the hospital with cirrhosis of the liver and diabetes, it may well be a former Marquette kitten who saves your life.  And you will be grateful that kitten didn't blow off studying the chapters on pancreas and liver function to see Marquette whoop Mt. St. Mary's.