Aaron

You could not be more right. I was a huge fan bought tickets all 4 years and never missed a game. My sister who started school right after I graduated got tickets all 4 years also. The first 2 she rarely went and was not that into it as it wasn't the 'cool' thing to do. Her junior year she went more as we got better and than her senior year she never missed a game when we were no. 1 and has remained a fan every since and has followed the team much closer. I tried everything to get her to be a sports fan growing up and it didn't work but when her friends started going and got her into it she became a huge fan and has remained to this day since it was the 'thing to do' at IU her last year. My point is many students do not come to IU as basketball fans and especially IU basketball fans and it takes a great year to really get them on board and make them part of the IU basketball culture. Many of our fans (including me) didn't get to experience the glory days and only know an average IU basketball team for most part. We can complain about fair weather fans all we want but that's what drives EVERY fan base. Die hards like me make up a small portion of a fan base while casual (or as some would say fair weather) fans are the vast majority of any fan base and in order to get those people hooked you have to win. We start winning big all these 'flaky students' will show up every game just like 2012-2013.

Correct. IU is one of the few that chooses (besides over holiday breaks) to sell everything ONLY via season tickets (about half to students and half to general public) which as I said has its advantages and drawbacks. Obviously the advantage is it guarantees IU the revenue from selling the tickets to every game and keeps opposing fans to about as limited a number as possible as happened yesterday. Drawback is you have a lot of no shows sometimes for non premium games unless IU is really good (this includes non-students as well). We can debate all we want if IU is using the correct method to sell all the tickets but these are the facts and is the reason why seats are not always full despite being sold.

Don't think that is gonna happen unfortunately. Painter loves his bigs and they already have another 6-10 guy recruited for next year to back up Haarms who is only a freshman. It sucks for other teams but Painter playing through his big men is what works for him so can't fault that. He also is a whiz with developing big men so they like playing for him. Just gotta play through it and try to beat them other ways which is something Crean failed at big time and hopefully Archie will not.

We are just not good enough. We lost to PU in the exact same way Crean did 2 times in the last 3 years. This team however, is not even in the same stratosphere talent wise but played PU to the wire still. in 2014-2015 and 2016-2017 at home we lost in the exact same way to a PU team we were evenly matched with which was unacceptable and one of the reasons why Crean is not here anymore, but today I am surprised we kept it as close as we did. Looking forward to even match ups next year with no Haas, V. Edwards, Thompson or Mathias. PU will fall to a borderline tourney team with Haarms, C. Edwards and Cline while we will rise to a borderline tourney team hopefully with our new recruits and Juwan sticks around ideally. Next year Archie will need to figure out a way to pull out a close win at home in a way Crean was not in recent years against PU when teams are back on even footing. Otherwise great crowd (place including balconies was finally full again) and Oladipo being introduced pre-game was awesome and loved how into the game he was cheering.

Today was certainly full (or at least 99%) and next week will be as well. No place jumps like Assembly Hall for big games when we are good or bad. When we are good it also is full and jumps for ANY game. Not making excuses and you would love to have it be full and as loud as it was today every game regardless but that is not how sports works anywhere. Another thing I was happy about was there were a lot fewer PU fans than I was afraid there could be (maybe 5-10%). Given how good they are and our struggles I was fearing it could be 20-25% but it was not close to that. Giving so many seats to students (that they sometimes don't use) and only selling season tickets has its draw backs but it definitely keeps opposing fans out like no other arena in the country can.

Sorry meant 07-08. My bad

Oh trust me. I''m well aware. When we win big seats are full every game. In 05-06 and 07-08 when I was a student every seat was full every game for these hyped years. In Crean's first three years not enough students even bought season tickets to sell the balcony so they sold them for $5 to individual games which mostly filled it. Than we had the 2 Zeller years after I finished school where we filled every seat every game. Than 2013-2014 had some empty seats as well as 2014-2015 for non-premium games. 2015-2016 started bad but by end of season every seat was full every game for second half of Big Ten. Last year started well with every seat full mostly (save for Crap U games) than fizzled out as season went off the rails. Same this year. Every single University fills seats based on how good they are. UCLA had real issues filling seats when Howland tanked them later in his tenure. PU rarely sold out during their down Painter years several years ago. Butler didn't fill the one year under Miller where they stunk. Filling seats is tied to winning unfortunately everywhere including Butler and IU. Right now Butler is winning and IU is not. Its that simple. I also stand by the fact that the reason Doyle took that shot is due to how the Indy media sometimes treats IU which is a separate issue from our attendance which is tied to winning. Also I have attended almost every single game as a student since 2005 and than as an alum with season tickets since 2011. I am not the problem. I am just stating the reality of what happens when you don't win at the level people expect.

Part of this is 100% on IU. I live in Indy and I can tell you IU takes the Indy market completely for granted and treats them like crap when it comes to availability. Painter and Jordan are on basically every week on the local radio as well as several PU and Butler players while IU gives them nothing. As a result the Indy media can get a little hostile towards IU and not treat them well unless they win big. IU needs to stop taking the state for granted and realize their are other options now and promote their product. IU athletic department can act like the spoiled child who believes they are grand but has done nothing to show it lately (to be fair our fans act the same way sometimes). Now with all that said this statement could not be more absurd. First off Hinkle is half the size of IU. Even our 'empty seat' games still have more people than Hinkle could even fit and Hinkle does not even always sell out. Secondly, Butler chooses to sell single game tickets instead of doing season tickets only so every seat usually sold fills. Now put that together and if IU does not want these absurd statements made by people in the Indy media I would recommend giving them the access that Butler and PU do or Indy media is going to continue to take shots at IU until they win big.

We basically have Tom Crean as our coach on the women's side. I was with family who have not been in years and they said this looks like the most talented team we have had but also the most sloppy. This is also my first time watching a whole game this year (I've seen last 3-5 min. of several games online) and this could not be more true. Talent is far beyond anything we have ever had but also the team chemistry is about the worst we have ever had. This years women's team is nearly identical to last years men's team (talented but underachieving and sloppy) while in past before Moren women's team has been like first 3 Crean teams (under talented but plays hard). As for today strange game where both teams kept turning it over. IU had a small lead most of first half than in 3rd qtr. Rutgers pressed IU into a turnover on basically every possession and took a 9 pt lead. Than for some reason Rutgers stopped pressing in 4th and started turning ball over themselves letting IU come back into the game and took the lead on a late Tyra Buss 3. IU was still sloppy down stretch and turned it over but hit enough free throws to eke out the win. Also at end for some reason after IU won they played the more laid back Hail to Old IU (which for men is reserved for losses only) instead of the upbeat Sing Sing Sing that I am use to after a win which was strange.

Attending game. First game of year. Hopefully team shows up.

Did something happen to Cal Krueger injury wise or is he possibly moving to the bullpen (maybe as the closer?). Mike Miller's article previewing the season mentions Stiever, Milto, Saalfrank, Herrin and Beachump in the mix for starts with no mention at all of Krueger. This is the first I have heard of this unless Mike just had an oversight when writing the article. https://www.hoosiersportsreport.com/2018/01/hoosiers-have-championship-aspirations-in-18/

Illinois is a 'fake' basketball school and like to think of themselves as a great basketball school (they're not). I agree with your point though that we should strive much higher than Illinois. I am saying until we win at least at a reasonable level (which we all should expect in the next year or two or else everyone's feet in the athletic department needs to be held to fire) we can expect empty seats either from the students buying and not attending or from people not buying if they are sold as single game seats. If we start winning and students still don't show (unlikely) than we can have a discussion about putting the tickets back on sale for the public.

I'd like to revisit this topic because Illinois had only 13,000 seats sold tonight and the rest went unsold. I am comparing this because until Illinois brought Groce in and tanked they sold out ever game basically. Now that they are rebuilding demand is lower and they still try to sell all their seats as single game to general public and its not working so well. This is what would happen to the balcony seats at IU for non-premium games if we just opened them up for single game sales instead of giving them to students who don't use them as season tickets. Better for the department financially to sell the balcony tickets to students who do not use them than to open them up for single game sales and have them go unsold. This would be a great topic to revisit if we start winning big again and students still don't show (which based on precedent seems unlikely given every game in 2012-2013 was packed as well as most of the Big Ten games in 2015-2016) but for now everyone needs to realize demand isn't great and until we win we can either use the Illinois method of letting the seats empty unsold or sell them to students who will not use them except for big games.

Once Archie and Underwood get players in here these teams may go places. Under Crean and Groce these were by far the two most horrifically coached teams in the conference but I see improvement for both teams under their new coaches systems once they get their own players in there. Illinois did nothing but chuck 3's and ran no offense under Groce and now do run somewhat of an offense and once Underwood has his own players they will be an annual tourney team as they should be. I would argue given their hierarchy historically in conference these 2 teams (outside of IU's 2012-2013 season) have been most disappointing last 10 years in Big Ten due to some terrible administration decisions by both departments with hires. Lastly this board is bi polar. We win we are the greatest thing since sliced bread. We lose a few impatient people think Archie is the wrong coach. The truth lies in between probably.

Women's Bball is the only sport at Wiscy where they stink year in and year out (besides Baseball which they don't play) and we beat them somewhat regularly. Nice win.

Correct

Their wins before joining Big Ten recently against IU came in Crean's second year in Big Ten/ACC Challenge at Assembly Hall and in national championship game in 02. IU won a thriller at Bankers Life in Indy in 03 year after we lost national championship. That's only times recently we have played them before they joined conference I believe. Since joining Big Ten we have beaten them 3 times at home, lost 2 close games in College Park and one loss in Big Ten Tourney.

Most fun game I have been at this year we won and best atmosphere in a while by far. We can talk about some empty seats but everyone who was there created a vintage Assembly Hall feeling late that pushed team over the top. If we can somehow hang in the next 2 games we should have even better atmospheres. Huge props to Morgan to play through the pain and he must be sore today. Guy is a warrior. Interestingly he looked really ginger in warm ups and clearly for first few minutes of game was not himself then just took off as he got more comfortable. I went on Maryland's message board and they are about as big of fans of Turgeon as we are of Crean. I thought Turgeon did make one terrible mistake last night that their fans should of been all over. He called a timeout with 7 minutes left when we had scored one basket to take a 2 point lead that was completely unnecessary and place was not that loud at that moment. He really needed that extra timeout in last minute when game was close and place was lit and super loud. He also called good timeouts early, when we scored late to take the lead back at 64-62 late and in last 30 seconds to draw up a play but he really could of used the one he wasted with 7 minutes left in last minute. Got to be careful with those on the road when timeouts are like gold. Overall great win and seems this team is coming together!

Pretty much agree with this and more or less what I said in my post in much greater detail.

First 30 minutes atmosphere was mediocre. Last 10 minutes was at a vintage level and really really loud. Unfortunately, besides Duke outside of cupcakes we have only played Iowa, NW and PSU before last night that could have any atmosphere at all. Iowa and NW were blowouts and PSU always has a week atmosphere as it excites no one. Maryland excites enough that a close game down the stretch creates vintage Assembly Hall which is absolutely was the last 5 minutes.

This is very simple and something I know about very well and will answer this topic in all aspects with mostly facts and some opinion. First off as has been mentioned there are so many Monday night classes compared with other nights where students have no choice. I know someone who taught a class last night but let students out early so they could go but most professors do not do that. This aspect of it is completely on the Big Ten and Monday and Friday games should be banned. Secondly as painful as it is for us locals most of these east coast fans are not familiar with IU basketball and will only go if IU is good or if its a big game. In 2012-2013 and the second half of 2015-2016 every seat was filled almost as has been the case for big games every year and next 2 will be packed. Students may not use the tickets, but besides those court seats no one wants the balcony. I have been somewhat following attendance for other Big Ten teams and most of the weeknight games for teams not at the top of the conference the seats just sit empty and not sold versus IU they are at least sold even if people choose not to attend. Thirdly the reason the balconies are more empty than ever is a couple years ago IU changed student distribution which I like the new way better. It use to be balcony was not GA and only the lower level seats below row 25 were. This made it so that you would have scattered empties in the lower level GA and it would take forever to fill as you only had as many GA tickets sold as seats available and students would get 1-2 GA games a year. Now with the balcony as part of the same GA tickets, those lower level seats almost always fill by tipoff and the few leftover GA students end up in the balcony who show up late. Students now get 7-8 GA games a year so you are finally rewarding loyalty in some ways. I wish they did this when I was in school 10 years ago. Court level and top of main level are not GA. I think this would be a great topic to revisit in a couple years if students still are not showing up once Archie brings up back but for now I am not sure anything different can be done as no one would want the seats in the balcony students are not using. My only suggestion would be to add the court as part of GA with the main level so those don't sit empty. Otherwise I think the way it is now is the best you can do until we start winning big again. Also even though you had 3,000 or so empties last night (this includes many main level non student seats as well so lets not just blame students) the ones who made it were extremely loud and this was by far the best atmosphere this year besides Duke.

Good game for Dipo except for 6 turnovers, 3 of which were really ridiculous and careless at the end of each half. Otherwise Pacers best game of year and first team to beat Spurs in San Antonio since November.

Third straight yr. IU guy in the Super Bowl. Of course Coleman and Latimer got to play last 2 years. Sudfeld will not unless its a blowout or Foles gets hurt. Still cool stat though.

This win is sort of infuriating not because we won which is great but it shows we are a decent team who is not playing anywhere near to what the potential is. Its much like the men's team last year that won so many less games than they were capable off given their talent.

We certainly have a chance no matter what but without Morgan (most likely) the reality of that goes down a bit.