Tough crowd
the announcers did a great job the other night talking about how Northwestern fans are usually outnumbered by visiting fans during the conference season. i read a few years ago that despite our location, there are at least three other big ten schools with larger alumni chapters in chicago than us. clearly a lot of those alums like to watch basketball. as a season ticket holder for all of my time at NU – including a year when my group of friends comprised eight of the TWENTY-FIVE student season ticket holders – i witnessed it time and time again. without question the loudest i've ever heard that place was late february in 1997, when Andre Woolridge was wrapping up a regular season in which he led the conference in scoring and assists. the visiting fans in black and gold chanting “MVP, MVP…” had the place absolutely rocking.
not really sure how that phenomenon will change. we have to accept that it will never be an especially large student crowd, despite the fact that those bastards don’t even have to pay for tickets anymore. i've talked about this before, but the issue NU will always face in terms of support is a lack of “automatic” fans. for instance, everyone in the state of wisconsin roots for the badgers, ohio roots for the buckeyes, etc. we will always be missing that, with no real connection to chicago or the state (certainly a near void of athletic achievement is not helping us either). i'm not using this as an excuse, however. there are dozens of teams around the country who turn out competitive seasons every year with no perceptible home-court advantage. on the other hand, most of those teams also have at least one player taller than 6’ 8”
not really sure how that phenomenon will change. we have to accept that it will never be an especially large student crowd, despite the fact that those bastards don’t even have to pay for tickets anymore. i've talked about this before, but the issue NU will always face in terms of support is a lack of “automatic” fans. for instance, everyone in the state of wisconsin roots for the badgers, ohio roots for the buckeyes, etc. we will always be missing that, with no real connection to chicago or the state (certainly a near void of athletic achievement is not helping us either). i'm not using this as an excuse, however. there are dozens of teams around the country who turn out competitive seasons every year with no perceptible home-court advantage. on the other hand, most of those teams also have at least one player taller than 6’ 8”
posted by Fire Bill Carmody at
2:49 PM
2 Comments:
why would it be any different than football? When you are competitive, people show up. Whe you win, they fill it up. When the team is .500 the crowd is fine. When they have gotten hot it is even a difficult place for other teams to play.
The problem is the team is awful, and is about to enter perhaps its worst cycle ever: the big ten in 3 years will be the most dominant conferene. Checked out the coaches these days? Our coach could not sound more defeatest. He knows he blew it, and he almost looks embarassed. It's up to Bienen, and that doesn't give anyone that likes competitive athletics confidence. He won't fire a Princeton friend.
Agreed. If you win, you'll get some support. Not enough to drown out the UW/MSU/UofI fans, but some support. NU has tried to sell tix by promoting "Big 10 action right in your backyard." But the cats aren't Big10 caliber, and the Big10 isn't any good to begin with. They're so bad you feel awkward being in the gym or even seeing it on TV.
Good point about the Bienen-Carmody princeton connection. I never thought about that before.
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