Great student crowd last night. It got loud on a few occasions, but still not back to the electric zoo

5,600 in attendance.

Need to make the AUBC the place to be for students and locals. When we really get this thing rolling, 7-8k should be the standard.

(01-27-2023 11:03 AM)PGJMU Wrote:  Great student crowd last night. It got loud on a few occasions, but still not back to the electric zoo

5,600 in attendance.

Need to make the AUBC the place to be for students and locals. When we really get this thing rolling, 7-8k should be the standard.

5,600 was a great crowd on a Thursday night. And the student section was large and generally loud. Sure helps when the students are closer to the floor, and of course the new arena makes this possible. It all appeared as a legi, big-time college BB on TV.

The audio mix on the broadcast still makes it seem like the crowd is dead. The difference between the audio on tv compared to the highlight videos the team releases on their twitter and instagram page are unreal. I saw one of the block leading to fast break from last night and was pleasantly surprised at the crowd noise because it never comes through like that on tv.

Noticed that Gonzaga puts the students on the sideline opposite their benches. Was thinking about why we don’t do that. I guess because it’s some of the best seats in the house and people will buy them. But then I look at behind our benches and how it still looks empty when we have 5k+ in the place. I guess it’s because folks with club seats aren’t all sitting in their seats, but it came across as weird.

Would putting students in those seats across the court from the benches entice some of those ticket-buyers to pony up for the club seats? Just thinking out loud. I suspect this calculus has already happened within our athletics department. It seemed to work at Gonzaga. The seats behind the benches were packed and filled with season ticket holders and the students were a big part of the game atmosphere because of their placement.

(01-27-2023 03:40 PM)Newduke Wrote:  The audio mix on the broadcast still makes it seem like the crowd is dead. The difference between the audio on tv compared to the highlight videos the team releases on their twitter and instagram page are unreal. I saw one of the block leading to fast break from last night and was pleasantly surprised at the crowd noise because it never comes through like that on tv.

This is true. We should really consider adding some ambient crowd microphones into the audio mix. It comes across a bit sterile, when we KNOW it’s not sterile when you’re there in-person.

Super happy with the students last night, and 5,600 was awesome to see. It was loud too any time there was anything to get loud about, obviously some lulls when Coastal was streaking. I wouldn't have been surprised if the attendance was even a little higher than that.

Agree with Hyper though that it sucks to still see so many empty STH seats. If the students keep it up and that improves then when the team is really good maybe we can come closer to regular sellouts than anyone expected. I also hate how many of the season ticket holders sit quietly like they're at an opera, as I've mentioned before. We need a basketball version of 109!

Students on the sidelines is definitely something that could be good for home court advantage. That's actually one of the first things Billy Donovan did when he arrived at Florida, he had them move the students to the sideline behind the benches and had the seats removed so they had to stand. It was a huge success there, I think JMU partially tried this at the Convo though with the risers and students still just sat on those.

(01-27-2023 06:53 PM)KickItToScotty Wrote:  Super happy with the students last night, and 5,600 was awesome to see. It was loud too any time there was anything to get loud about, obviously some lulls when Coastal was streaking. I wouldn't have been surprised if the attendance was even a little higher than that.

Agree with Hyper though that it sucks to still see so many empty STH seats. If the students keep it up and that improves then when the team is really good maybe we can come closer to regular sellouts than anyone expected. I also hate how many of the season ticket holders sit quietly like they're at an opera, as I've mentioned before. We need a basketball version of 109!

Students on the sidelines is definitely something that could be good for home court advantage. That's actually one of the first things Billy Donovan did when he arrived at Florida, he had them move the students to the sideline behind the benches and had the seats removed so they had to stand. It was a huge success there, I think JMU partially tried this at the Convo though with the risers and students still just sat on those.

I've always thought Duke's seating arrangement is ideal for college basketball, and wish we would replicate that.

Ah man, the choral risers. What a disaster.

(01-27-2023 06:57 PM)JMURocks Wrote:  

(01-27-2023 06:53 PM)KickItToScotty Wrote:  Super happy with the students last night, and 5,600 was awesome to see. It was loud too any time there was anything to get loud about, obviously some lulls when Coastal was streaking. I wouldn't have been surprised if the attendance was even a little higher than that.

Agree with Hyper though that it sucks to still see so many empty STH seats. If the students keep it up and that improves then when the team is really good maybe we can come closer to regular sellouts than anyone expected. I also hate how many of the season ticket holders sit quietly like they're at an opera, as I've mentioned before. We need a basketball version of 109!

Students on the sidelines is definitely something that could be good for home court advantage. That's actually one of the first things Billy Donovan did when he arrived at Florida, he had them move the students to the sideline behind the benches and had the seats removed so they had to stand. It was a huge success there, I think JMU partially tried this at the Convo though with the risers and students still just sat on those.

I've always thought Duke's seating arrangement is ideal for college basketball, and wish we would replicate that.

Honestly probably exactly who Billy Donovan was trying to emulate and it worked pretty damn well:





True that it could also push more fans in the priority sideline towards the club sections, though the price difference is fairly steep so that can be tough for people with four or five tickets like us. At least the entire difference is in the seat contribution though, so it's not like you would go from $1,125 to $2,625 with five tickets and screw yourself out of priority points if you lower your donation to afford it. Looks like dook and Florida both only have students for about ten rows of the sideline so it's not like it kills all sideline season tickets on one side either.

Take out the first row railing, put students on the next step down and put a waist high rail in front of them, put more students in the current front nine rows, take out the current 10th row and replace it with a railing separating students from season ticket holders... Boom! You've got a Cameron Crazies, Rowdy Reptiles style intimidating student section that's right on top of the court across a sideline!

I don't think we have the student demand yet to fill in sideline seats. The Thursday night crowd was great - there was a Greek-night event for your Greek org to get perks for attending. Saturday afternoon was a fraction of the Thursday student crowd (still a great crowd!). If the students had sideline tix then the season ticket boo-birds would start chirping that the student seats are empty and they should be sold to season ticket holders.

If the club seats looked empty, i'm not sure why but I guess it's because everybody had seats next us us. It was shoulder to shoulder in there (has been for most games lately) and everybody near us showed up to their seats.

Yeah, it was just a stark difference on Thursday. Packed house but club seats were fairly sparse. Saturday seemed much more filled in.