Top 10 attendance for IUBB
- Thread starter snowling
- Start date
It is impressive that we were top 10 in attendance the year we fired our coach. I continue to believe IU is a slumbering giant and we can get back and take our rightful place among the UK, KU and UNC's of the bball world if we just have some sustained success. Here's hoping Archie is the guy to do it! Go Hoosiers!
I doubt that string would have lasted another year without the coaching change. It's darned nice to look forward to basketball season, not dread it.
I had just about run out of damns to give.
It says a hell of a lot for the IU fan base that we had as much dissension among the fans about the coach we had - yet still was top 10 in attendance!
Not to mention the actual cost of half of those seats.....
Wait a minute. Wasn't IU a top ten or 5 preseason team? Now I know how crazy the fans are but there was a lot of preseason hype and it's not like they had a tough preconference schedule. So the hype continued into the BIG schedule. I apologize if I'm wrong on the preconference ranking.
I am pretty sure after we beat KU that were ranked 3rd or 4th.
What does your point have to do with anything I said? My point was that we still had great attendance, despite a disappointing season in which we fired our coach. We had still had relatively strong attendance figures during the rebuild after Sampson. We've continued to support our program very well, even in the down years. Unlike the "crowds" I saw in Mackey in PU's down years that dwindled to a few thousand at times. I get your point, it's just a poor one.
Exactly.
Even after the Kansas win there were those of us who understood that team had many of the same issues most Crean-led teams suffered from.
How is it a poor one? You don't think having a top 5 ranked team helped? I also remember during the rebuild years that IU offered $5 tickets. Maybe they did a better marketing job than Purdue. I also recall IU turning down the opening game in the NIT. It was speculated that they turned it down because of a lack of attendance (interest). And yes I know that IU fans are rabid and usually support their program with extreme enthusiasm. Interest wanes when the product is not very good.
I do recall $5 tix, but think that was originally used by PU to fill seats! IU may have done that, but I think for the lame duck NIT game with Mike Davis departing. That's my point: IU fan interest hasn't waned nearly as much as other programs even in the down years (I was in the DeanDome for Bill Guthridge's last season and I'd guess there were maybe 7000 people there for IU coming to town!). We weren't a top 5 team until after beating KU, and by that time, most tix had already been purchased. And, almost as quickly, we began the losing that ultimately kept us out of the tourney and got our coach canned. PU has had some good seasons, how many times have they appeared on this list?
I'm not really questioning support for the IU basketball program . It's there most of the time. I thought the $5 tickets were fairly early in Crean's tenure but I could be mistaken. I think the failure of the IU football team over the years has made the fans even hungrier for men's basketball. They have the heritage, the media, and reputation. Purdue can't even compare to match that. Let me pose this: Do you think Iu has lived off of that reputation to stay relevant in the media? I mean no FF since 2002 and no championship since 1987. I'm not knocking that. Hell, Purdue will kill to say that. I don't think it's recent success on a national level that has kept them being televised nationally. I'm curious as to what you all think. I'm being rational here I think so I hope I'm not going to take a beatdown for posing this.
I think you are confusing being relevant to being elite. We are still relevant but not elite right now and that is proven by how many national games we get.
