Giant ice storm, no students…I mean, what do you expect? Hell, I’ve been at a game at Cameron Indoor Stadium when students were away and it was kind of lame.

And this is where I whine about the non-conference schedule. Playing NJIT and Sacred Heart does nothing to energize what little fanbase actually exists for the program, so it shouldn’t shock anybody that tiny, lethargic crowds show up for the games, even when students are there and the weather is good.

The place is a fu@#ing barn. They’ll never fill it.

…i didn’t even know penn state had a bball program. if i would’ve know while i was there, i prolly went to a couple games.

tehehe

Obviously winning helps tremendously. Losing for so many years has created an entire student body that doesn’t care about basketball. Most of the seniors on campus today have probably never been to a basketball game. If not for THON they won’t even know how to find the Jordan Center. Those people are too late to bring back. They have to target the freshmen on campus. They live the closest to the BJC and furthest from downtown. I would canvas East Halls and bring them in to the BJC. Have little pep rallies on the quad in East Halls. Get students hooked when they first come on campus. Then when they become seniors and move into an apartment on Beaver Avenue they’ll miss the basketball experience and come back.

Then they have to do something about the Alumni who buy up cheap season tickets and don’t use them. A lot of them are corporations that get them to hand out to customers and employees. I’ve recommended several times that season ticket holders should have to check into a website a week before the game to acknowledge they intend to go. If they fail to log into the website and register their attendence, their ticket gets sold at the window on game day. Give the good seats to the people who show up instead of forcing them to sit in the upper deck or behind the basket. I bet you would boost attendence by 5-10% by doing this alone.

The basketball program needs to show me something. Show me your committed to having a respectable program. I live in State College and could go to every game. But, I’m definitely not going to games like NJIT and Sacred Heart. I know I’m just being a bandwagon fan, but until I truly have confidence that this is a team worth following, I’m not going to spend my time going to games. I wouldn’t mind going to a few games, there are just other things I’d rather do with my time. I feel like I spend enough of my time in the fall going to football games, and it’s kinda of nice having a break.

The marketing for basketball has always seemed like a desperate cry for attention to me. It’s like “Hey, guys! We’ve got a basketball team and we’re gonna try and play really really hard to win and maybe you’ll get a free pizza out of it or something.” It’s easy to understand: don’t suck, and people will show up.

As a student, a basketball game was somewhat of a novelty. It was put up there with attending a frat party as a junior, drunkenly strolling through Late Night Penn State activities in the HUB, or patronizing the Saloon. Something to do from time to time to mix things up, but certainly not a time-honored tradition. Penn State isn’t a basketball school per se, but that’s no excuse. There’s enough students on campus to fill up the BJC 3-ish times. Build a decent and reputable program, and people will show up.

The method of building that remains the question. There’s the cupcake diet, 10-1 at the start of Big Ten season approach, and the rigorous challenging teams, 6-5 at the start of Big Ten season approach, and there’s a middle ground. While this season represented the former method, the team looks pretty legitimate this year. Most years in the past, that hasn’t happened.

We need a few preseason cupcakes to work out the kinks. However, let’s make it a point to get local decent schools, like Pitt, Bucknell, Temple, St. Joes, and Villanova on frequently. There’s no reason the D-1 schools in PA can’t play each other every few years. They are all consistently decent programs. They also tend to bring a few fans in with them. I think it was 04 when we played Pitt at home. The place was 3/4 full (albeit half of the fans were Pitt fans), but anyone who was there can tell you it was a fun environment.

And for the love of Christ, play preseason cupcake games in Rec Hall. Even throw in one Big Ten game a year… limit the supply of seats and economics would dictate that you’ll create a demand.

I’ve never been in the BJC. It seems like a good idea (big fancy new arena), but I don’t think it’s realistic for Penn State at this point. I graduated in 91, when all games were in Rec Hall. It didn’t take too many people to fill the place and really be noisy. The same number in BJC would look like a Pitt football game. Plus there was something nice and convenient about having the building right on campus.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just an old guy wishin’ for the old days…..

No one remembers our thrilling final four run in ’54?

Listen, I say screw off to people that don’t want to be involved. I have been going to the occasional game since high school and more so once I got to school here. When we beat UNC in 01 to go to the sweet 16 is a wonderful memory of mine. The bottom line is that people will care once we are consistently good, and its that simple. I’ll of course have a good chuckle when the band wagon forms, its a matter of time.

And we might be historically not that good, but we are not UMBC or Belmont or something, we have been good every now and then and its starting to become regular but students can’t sit back and wish for a good team, if the fans show no interest, players won’t want to come here and make it better and the ones here won’t want to play well because nobody cares, show some damn pride in your school!