(12-03-2017 10:46 PM)MavUp Wrote:  

(12-03-2017 11:58 AM)runamuck Wrote:  

(12-03-2017 10:14 AM)MavUp Wrote:  

(12-03-2017 08:45 AM)runamuck Wrote:  

(12-02-2017 11:55 PM)MavUp Wrote:  UT Arlington defeats cross-town rival UNT 65-60. It was a thriller, luckily our guys found a way to win like true winners do.

I was expecting a larger crowd since the last UNT game in 2015 at UT Arlington drew circa 6K ... the announced attendance was only 2.7K (higher than average). But the crowd really got loud and into the game towards the end and definitely got the guys pumped up when they needed it most.

classes are over in a couple of days and many students were probably away from school. these games against untexas in most any sport usually draw a big feisty crowd tho. the mavs missed many shots and were out rebounded. seems like the mean green would come with every loose ball too.

1) I was surprised the game was so close. I was expecting a blow out but in rivalry games I forgot to expect the unexpected.

2) Well the last time they played on campus in 2015 it was a Thursday and it was almost a packed house of 6K. The game last year at UNT drew 2.2K so last night crowd of 2.7K was an improvement from the previous game. UTA draws a bigger crowd on average than UNT do for the series so that's a plus.

3) I feel like athletics and school pride is improving, but I still feel like the student body and alumni are generally apathetic. The game against Rice last week was during the weekday and it was less than 2K in the building and normally in-state games are supposed to draw big crowds. The Shorthorn has written several articles encouraging students to show more school pride, the president always encourages students to attend games on twitter, and also there are always great promotionals and nothing seems to consistently work. UTA fans show up for the very big games sometimes as I seen best with the NIT games in March and the TCU baseball games on campus.

for big games against national opponents you get a lot of metro area people who are basketball savy as the dfw area is home to a lot of relocated folks from other areas. I was at those nit games last season. the crowds were more than just a good turnout of students. these are two schools with large student bodies and large numbers of nearby alumni so it is surprising that the game was not a sell out.

School and alumni size doesn't correlate with attendance I've learned. It's the culture and expectations which are still a work in progress at both UTA and UNT. UTD has over 20K students but rarely bring in more than 1K for any athletic event.

yes INMHO the students at these schools arent very interested in sports, especially at utd. none are flagship schools so they dont have that statewide following of non alumni that will show up at games. uta and untexas both struggle for relevance in the metro area where there are so many other sports options.