Attendance

NYCRedmen

NYCRedmen

Well-known member
 Box score lists the Louisville attendance at 9,258. Is it me or did it seem like it was more like 7K?
 
 LOL, I didn't have my wide angle lens. Also was it me or was the place just dead in terms of atmosphere. The most noise seemed to be only when the fans got frustrated with refs.
 
 LOL, I didn't have my wide angle lens. Also was it me or was the place just dead in terms of atmosphere. The most noise seemed to be only when the fans got frustrated with refs.
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Maybe the 5 for 35 had a little to do with the dead atmoshere ;)
 
 Box score lists the Louisville attendance at 9,258. Is it me or did it seem like it was more like 7K?
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Some people may have come in for the Iona-Siena game, and not come for the first game. I stayed for the second game, and both teams had a decent amount of fans in the areana, realative to the league they play in anyway.
 
Seemed like about 7,000 at most to me.

Place was dead, but a nice thing was the loud ovation (mostly standing) for the Military Person -of -the- Game and his compadres, very nice indeed.

I don't know about anyone else, i am not impressed and not too happy with these so-called renovations at the Garden, I liked it better the old way. 
 
 It's pretty depressing to think how empty the Garden may have been last night had there not been people there who were interested in the 2nd game.
 
 It's pretty depressing to think how empty the Garden may have been last night had there not been people there who were interested in the 2nd game.
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Let me be clear, there were a lot more people total at our game, then the second one. I just think that some of the 9K didn't come in until game 2. 
 
Speaking of fans, I meant to post these pics after the Arizona game on the Zona thread but didn't get around to it. It's clear from the pics that the student's/fans that do show up have a lot of passion for St. John's and they deserve much kudos. Yes, I don't count you if you don't wear red ; )  
 
On the other hand and on the plus side we did have about 20 students at the game which is pretty good for a university of about 15,000 which plays big time basketball in the worlds most famous arena. 
 
 1) No way was there 9k at Louisville for the MSG game. And that's a shame for a game against a ranked opponent.

2) The student section was pathetically small. And I don't want to hear that classes weren't in session. SJU is mostly a commuter school, nobody returned home to California for their winter break! This isn't Indiana or Michigan. The vast majority of students live within 40 minutes of MSG.
 
You could almost understand it if it was a university where everyone went home for Christmas and was unable to travel to the game. Certainly not the case with our extremely apathetic student body.

Maybe The Torch would want to write an editorial about the complete lack of school spirit at St. John's.

It really is pathetic.

Those of you who made the effort, in the bitter cold, you are to be commended.

And by the way, most of our alumni (with the exception of the posters on redmen.com and johnny jungle) are not any better.
 
Unfortunately our student body/fan base has had a long standing history of being apathetic. Yes we draw more fans when we are winning, no disputes there, but even last year's games against Pitt, UConn & Syracuse were not sellouts. It's almost as if our fans just pencil in Duke, Syracuse and UConn if we happen to get them at home and that's it. The Louisville & Arizona games were embarrassing. You hear the same excuse all the time, that game was not part of our season tickets, the students are on break, it's a 9:00 start. One thing we lead the league in is making excuses. I also blame the school to a degree as well. I often wonder if the University does enough to promote or encourage students/fans to attend. Sometimes it seems as if the school's approach is "well they know about the team & the games so if they want to attend they will". As frustrating as it is, I don't give up hope. As Fran Frascilla once said, "my vision is walking into Madison Square Garden and seeing a sea of red".
 
To me the problem is SJU got greedy. In the glory days, a game at MSG was truly an event because there were only 3-4 of them. Gtown, Syracuse, maybe UCLA and another Big East school based on the expected rank.

7,000 at MSG looks awful, at Alumni it would be a raucous crowd filled to the brim. SJU should not be playing so many games at MSG. heck, Cameron only holds 9,000, if they played all their games at a 19,000 seat arena people would consider Duke apathetic since the school is likely not big enough to fill an arena that size nightly . Instead, they stayed on campus and built the biggest home court in the NCAA.

UCONN fans no longer come close to filling MSG because they play so much there, it loses its novelty. Duke is now pushing the envelope as they seem to be at the garden 3 times a year. Sometimes less is more.



 
 
Never thought of it like that Dennis, that is an excellent point. Unfortunately Carnesecca Arena now holds less than the old Alumni Hall. We must be the only program on the planet in a major conference that renovates their on campus arena and reduces seating capacity.
 
To me the problem is SJU got greedy. In the glory days, a game at MSG was truly an event because there were only 3-4 of them. Gtown, Syracuse, maybe UCLA and another Big East school based on the expected rank.

7,000 at MSG looks awful, at Alumni it would be a raucous crowd filled to the brim. SJU should not be playing so many games at MSG. heck, Cameron only holds 9,000, if they played all their games at a 19,000 seat arena people would consider Duke apathetic since the school is likely not big enough to fill an arena that size nightly . Instead, they stayed on campus and built the biggest home court in the NCAA.

UCONN fans no longer come close to filling MSG because they play so much there, it loses its novelty. Duke is now pushing the envelope as they seem to be at the garden 3 times a year. Sometimes less is more.



 
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 When the MSG renovation is complete in another 2 yrs., will the world's most famous arena become more attractive (new sky walk, for example) to St. John's fans ?

You may be right about Duke. However, St. John's has 20,000 students (undergrad, grad, professional) with 150,000 alumni, the overwhelming majority who live in the tri-state area.

While I will concede that it is difficult to fill MSG every game, is it unreasonable to expect consistent crowds of 12K (and assume 3K are rooting for the opposition), given the aforementioned.
 
Never thought of it like that Dennis, that is an excellent point. Unfortunately Carnesecca Arena now holds less than the old Alumni Hall. We must be the only program on the planet in a major conference that renovates their on campus arena and reduces seating capacity.
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All true, except in the overwhelming majority of cases (there are exceptions such a G'Town, Nova, SH for example), the on-campus arena is the only arena in which a team plays its games.

For better or worse, we play our so-called big games at MSG which seats 20K and its one of our primary advantages (agree or not) in recruiting.

While some, perhaps many, want a 10K on campus arena, the financial support for such an initiative wasn't there to support such a facility. Even if it was, I don't know if it was possible, given the space considerations.

Even though the seating capacity at CA has shrunk a little, it is still a better facility now than it once was in many respects.
 
To me the problem is SJU got greedy. In the glory days, a game at MSG was truly an event because there were only 3-4 of them. Gtown, Syracuse, maybe UCLA and another Big East school based on the expected rank.

7,000 at MSG looks awful, at Alumni it would be a raucous crowd filled to the brim. SJU should not be playing so many games at MSG. heck, Cameron only holds 9,000, if they played all their games at a 19,000 seat arena people would consider Duke apathetic since the school is likely not big enough to fill an arena that size nightly . Instead, they stayed on campus and built the biggest home court in the NCAA.

UCONN fans no longer come close to filling MSG because they play so much there, it loses its novelty. Duke is now pushing the envelope as they seem to be at the garden 3 times a year. Sometimes less is more.



 
Click to expand...
 When the MSG renovation is complete in another 2 yrs., will the world's most famous arena become more attractive (new sky walk, for example) to St. John's fans ?

You may be right about Duke. However, St. John's has 20,000 students (undergrad, grad, professional) with 150,000 alumni, the overwhelming majority who live in the tri-state area.

While I will concede that it is difficult to fill MSG every game, is it unreasonable to expect consistent crowds of 12K (and assume 3K are rooting for the opposition), given the aforementioned.
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I think it will get there JSJ. I still believe that this program was for lack of a better word "neglected" for a lot of years. Bad hires, bad PR and other issues took a toll. This thing is building up again, trust me. Last season after some big wins like the Pitt game, there were for the first time in my recollection, bars full with SJU fans chanting "Lets go Redmen". Before last year, one would be hard pressed to find SJU fans congregating in numbers at any one place.

IMO, Lavin will have us back to that place where we decent numbers and maybe better. This is just the beginning. a few more Harkless' and Harrisons and we are competing with the big boys. It's as close as a season or so away if we can land some talent in 2012. Attendance numbers will really be helped by consistent success though. Fans need to order their tickets expecting greatness, which is what draws fans to other programs. 
 
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