Aaron

I just sat in the top rows of the balcony in the center for Memphis recently and its not bad. I have sat pretty much everywhere in the balcony at some point and the one spot that is truly terrible is the top 10 rows behind the basket. Everything else are decent seats in my mind (including corners and baseline high or low with them getting somewhat better the farther down the you go). However, as I said previously the atmosphere at a Pacer game at times can be truly pathetic in a close game late which is not something IU ever deals with.

Wow UVA blew the way in a way Crean would be proud. UVA up 4 with about 30 seconds left Va Tech makes a 3, UVA than nearly turns it over several times before being fouled. Miss the FT. Allow an offensive rebound to put VA Tech in front with 5 seconds left. Than UVA jacks a long 3 for the win with they had time to dribble in for a closer shot. For all the talk of UVA's defense and discipline they were completely the opposite of doing either last 30 seconds.

MSU with a case of Dejavu. Get fouled up 3 against Iowa with under 5 seconds left. Missed both Ft's. Iowa dribbles to half court with chance to tie and 3 just misses except this time it went off front rim instead of back rim like IU.

To me someone who is not being smart in all off this and is going to regret what he is saying is Ryan Phillips. He works for Big Lead as a national reporter but also is a figure on the Assembly Call show always where the Colts and IU fan base cross over somewhat. Also a regular on Kent Sterling Show. Obviously entitled to his opinion but he immediately tweeted this was on Irsay for being unprofessional and that this is somehow on Colts. Seems like your angering a part of the hand that feeds you. Next interview with Kent Sterling will be fascinating and he's usually on 1-2 times a week. As for me I always was worried about dealing with a Pats guy and was afraid this could happen. Ballard had to learn the hard way and so much for the thawing he had done with Pats as reported earlier in week.

Oladipo vs Zeller. Wish that had happened in Monday when game was in Indy.

I know its different league different expectations but I could not believe how terrible the Pacers crowd was tonight late in a close game that the Pacers ultimately won. You can blame people for not showing up and for being quiet early in a game at IU but at least in a close game in the last 5 minutes people stand and get into a game and make a lot of noise and make it hard on the opposing team. You would of thought it was the 1st qtr. when the game was on line in last minute for Pacers tonight. Only maybe half the place stood as Memphis drove for the win and very little noise and that was the only time there was any noise at all in a down to the wire game. Again I am not comparing IU to an NBA crowd and at times it should be much better for IU but at least it never sinks to the level of pathetic that Pacers had tonight in terms of atmosphere even against cupcakes in November. By the way I am saying this all as both a huge IU and Pacers fan.

Attended my 3rd game of the year tonight and Victor was beyond terrible. Clearly he doesn't like performing as well when I'm there. Against Portland had 17 points but was an ugly 5-17 from field in blowout loss. He missed the Dallas game a few weeks ago with injury. Was even worse tonight with just 13 points and 7 turnovers as mentioned above. He also missed a wide open 3 to take the lead back with about a minute and a half left than committed a costly offensive foul with under a min. left. Fortunately Pacers still won as Turner was fouled getting the rebound after a Memphis miss on the next possession and made both ft's and Memphis missed a layup on their final possession with under 5 sec. left that would of won it and pacers held on. I love what Oladipo is doing but it just stinks in the 3 games I have attended I have not seen the normal vintage Vic.

We finished with 8 turnovers and had 7 at the 4 min media timeout in the first half so we had 1 in the last 24 minutes.

Wiscy is so broken right now and look nothing like a normal Wisconsin team of the last 20 years. Everything Wisconsin is built on of strong free throw shooting, good discipline, frustrating slow pace and tough D is gone this year. Gard did a great job baby sitting Bo Ryan's players for a couple years but now everything Bo installed is gone. Gard has a lot to prove. Still to early to tell if this is an aberration like MSU football last year or the beginning of a downfall for Gard much like IU had with Mike Davis after he won with Knight's guys for a couple years. Nebraska is playing well but they still are not great having been blown out by a winless in conference St. John's team and also a pretty bad loss to a mediocre UCF team. The fact that this Nebraska team is thriving right now shows how weak the Big Ten is this year outside of OSU, MSU, PU and Michigan. The other 10 teams are all pretty bad and its just a question of who is the least bad of those 10.

The reason they switched to GA at all was because in the late 2000's when I was in school students were showing up late so the activists students of my generation (I was not one of them who helped make this switch) worked with the athletic department to switch to some GA to address this issue. The year after I graduated they had just the lower GA but by doing that you only had as many GA spots as seats in K, L and M section so instead of empty balconies for non premium games you would have the back third of GA empty sometimes. Than the athletic department on their own decided to combine GA with the balconies to ensure the lower GA is full by tip off for both visual and TV purposes I would assume. I know some feel differently and the current system is far from ideal but I certainly prefer it to my days in school where you would get 1 court, 2 or 3 lower level low down (it was not GA at that point) and 1 or 2 high up games in main level with the rest balcony with all seats pre-assigned. Now with the switch to GA you get like 6-7 GA games, a court game and a couple games higher up in the main level. If you are timely and a big fan you are actually rewarded and normally get good seats which is something that lacked when I was in school. Certainly, current system is not ideal and people can differ how student tickets should be distributed but the current system seems preferable to what they used when I was in school where you just had scattered empties every year (except the Gordon year were people always showed up) in the student section for non premium games and everyone assigned a seat for every game.

Yes. Born and bred in Bloomington. Diehard fan since Mid 90's when I was around 8 or 9 years old. Now live in Indy since graduating IU but lived in Indiana my whole life in either Bloomington (21 years) or Indy (9 years).

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.

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.