Maryland Student Section
- Thread starter Moose
- Start date
National championship very recently?
Much more students?
Not a commuter school?
Yup.
We are not a huge football school with 40,000 people. We have 18,000 across ALL campuses...probably closer to 10k on the Queens Campus aka the main one. So essentially they outnumber us about 4:1 already no matter who's a fan or who isn't. Even if every single SJ student attended every single game we could never make it look like that. At a certain point you can't compete with a totally different style school population wise. New York is not a state where we have 1 huge flagship university with 40,000 students, a top 50 ranking academically, a BCS football team, the sheer number of alumni, let alone the athletic success i.e. a national basketball championship in 2002, women's championship in 2006, men's soccer in 05, 08, etc.
Don't get me wrong I would love that kind of atmosphere and unity, but you just can't have it at a commuter school with a crappy on campus arena, no legitimate success since over a decade ago in basketball, with no football program, etc.
L J S A
Well-known member
I actually thought I was pretty up to date on the latest trends, but I literally had never heard of this Harlem Shake thing until today, when a high school hockey team forfeited playoff appearances because of a locker room video. I guess the cock sock on one of the kids probably freaked out administrators.
But back to Maryland, it would be nice if St. John's actually had exuberant fans.
But back to Maryland, it would be nice if St. John's actually had exuberant fans.
redstorm80
Well-known member
Scott Van Pelt looks so confused haha
It would also be nice if we could consistently compete with the top teams in the nation and win a title. I'm all for fan exuberance, but we must put things in perspective. For a commuter school of 10k ish (Queens), with a basketball team that has done nothing but embarrass for a decade, a terrible marketing team, terrible gear, an absurdly average on campus arena, and a recent name change (Redmen to Red Storm), I think we do pretty well attendance wise. You have to understand the difference between a very successful public 40,000 student BCS flagship state football school where tons of people live on campus and a has-been successful private 10,000 student non-football non-state school where 80%+ of the students drive home to LI, NJ, SI, Queens, etc. after their classes.
Yes, but that only makes it more important that we get our name out there in the top 25 every year and make deep runs in the tourney. Students are one thing...they are easier to please than the public and they have a natural will to support where they attend obviously. To get the public into it, the product must be very successful. Right now, it isn't and it hasn't been for a long time. We are soon approaching the crossroads where we either 1) finally put it all together with great recruiting, great talent, and great performances leading to deep tourney runs and gaudy rankings under Lavin OR 2) have more of the same and compete a few times each decade, have no pure shooters, no big time post players, and watch the program rot for another 10 years. You know the famous saying "If you build it they will come", well...if we win a lot, they will come. Remember...we barely even got a slight taste of success in 2011, and MSG was wild plus we were stealing headlines and making appearances on prominent ESPN programs like PTI. If it was that crazy just for making the tourney and barely being ranked, just imagine what it would be like if we were a consistent top 10 program with a few recent Final Four's and a championship. Winning brings fans. Fans don't bring winning. It's up to the team to do well...fans will react accordingly as they should.
Class of 72
Active member
It is THE biggest game of the year. There are close to 40,000 students and staff in College Park (a small city) and they have a unique ticket distribution methodology. No standing on lines to collect your student ticket unlike our high school operation on Union Turnpike.
Student section:
Maryland students are primarily positioned along courtside and "The Wall," a kop style seating section behind the opponent's 2nd half basket filled with only students. Normally there are 4,000 students in attendance, so Maryland is considered one of the most intimidating student sections in the ACC alongside North Carolina and Duke. Because of the athletic department's online lottery system which distributes tickets to students, most games are student sell-outs. Student attendance is typically highest for conference games (especially Duke, for which the demand for tickets is exceedingly high), non-conference games against top teams (such as the annual ACC–Big Ten Challenge) and the annual "Maryland Madness" event (formerly, though still colloquially, known as "Midnight Madness") held in October to signify the team's ability to begin practicing. Attendance by students is generally lowest for early season exhibition and non-conference games, as well as games played while the students are on Thanksgiving and winter break.
The online ticket system was implemented for both football and men's basketball beginning with the 2002–2003 season, as an alternative to the traditional method which required students to camp out for tickets to big games. Though it is somewhat more fair in that it gives all students an opportunity to attend games without forcing them to give up time waiting in lines, it has come under fire by students for several reasons. Because there are more than twice as many tickets available for football games, these problems are generally not significantly associated with footbal
Loyalty Points:
Tickets are given via a weighted lottery; students accumulate loyalty points for claiming and attending games and Maryland Madness. Each point gives the student one more entry in the lottery for subsequent games. For example, a student with 10 loyalty points will have his or her name entered 11 times for the game he or she wishes to attend (once by default, and once more for each point); by contrast, a student with zero loyalty points will have his or her name entered only once. Though the system does give a decided advantage to students with more points, as it was designed to do, it is still possible (and somewhat common) for students with no or few points to receive tickets to late season games. This aspect is most commonly debated leading up to the yearly home game against Duke, when an abnormally high amount of students request tickets, and it is not uncommon for students who have attended every home game to lose the lottery while students who have attended no games win a ticket.
Scan and Leave"
As a result of the advantages students gain by attending games early in the season against typically underwhelming non-conference opponents, a phenomenon developed known among students as "scanning and leaving." In order to receive a loyalty point, a student must do three things: request a ticket online, claim it (if selected in the lottery) and, finally, present their ticket and student ID at the entrance to Comcast Center to be scanned and authenticated. Once the student's ticket is scanned and he or she can leave the arena....and many do.
Student section:
Maryland students are primarily positioned along courtside and "The Wall," a kop style seating section behind the opponent's 2nd half basket filled with only students. Normally there are 4,000 students in attendance, so Maryland is considered one of the most intimidating student sections in the ACC alongside North Carolina and Duke. Because of the athletic department's online lottery system which distributes tickets to students, most games are student sell-outs. Student attendance is typically highest for conference games (especially Duke, for which the demand for tickets is exceedingly high), non-conference games against top teams (such as the annual ACC–Big Ten Challenge) and the annual "Maryland Madness" event (formerly, though still colloquially, known as "Midnight Madness") held in October to signify the team's ability to begin practicing. Attendance by students is generally lowest for early season exhibition and non-conference games, as well as games played while the students are on Thanksgiving and winter break.
The online ticket system was implemented for both football and men's basketball beginning with the 2002–2003 season, as an alternative to the traditional method which required students to camp out for tickets to big games. Though it is somewhat more fair in that it gives all students an opportunity to attend games without forcing them to give up time waiting in lines, it has come under fire by students for several reasons. Because there are more than twice as many tickets available for football games, these problems are generally not significantly associated with footbal
Loyalty Points:
Tickets are given via a weighted lottery; students accumulate loyalty points for claiming and attending games and Maryland Madness. Each point gives the student one more entry in the lottery for subsequent games. For example, a student with 10 loyalty points will have his or her name entered 11 times for the game he or she wishes to attend (once by default, and once more for each point); by contrast, a student with zero loyalty points will have his or her name entered only once. Though the system does give a decided advantage to students with more points, as it was designed to do, it is still possible (and somewhat common) for students with no or few points to receive tickets to late season games. This aspect is most commonly debated leading up to the yearly home game against Duke, when an abnormally high amount of students request tickets, and it is not uncommon for students who have attended every home game to lose the lottery while students who have attended no games win a ticket.
Scan and Leave"
As a result of the advantages students gain by attending games early in the season against typically underwhelming non-conference opponents, a phenomenon developed known among students as "scanning and leaving." In order to receive a loyalty point, a student must do three things: request a ticket online, claim it (if selected in the lottery) and, finally, present their ticket and student ID at the entrance to Comcast Center to be scanned and authenticated. Once the student's ticket is scanned and he or she can leave the arena....and many do.
FKASJU
Member
It would be nice, but it will never happen at StJ or MSG for this School. Blame it on commuter school, blame it on no football, blame it on too much to do in NYC, blame it on no on-campus stadium, or just blame on lack of school pride, it will just not happen with this fan base. The majority of the people who care about this basketball program are signifiantly older than the standard college undergrad.
I know this won't be popular (what else is new with me right?), but I do think the extreme diversity of our students these days is also a contributing factor in the dearth of college basketball craze at SJ. Yes being a commuter school kills, yes being in NYC with so much to do kills, yes being in a smaller school kills, yes our gear and marketing kills, yes our lack of a nice Big East level new on campus stadium kills, but the diversity is in there somewhere. When you have so many different races, cultures, backgrounds, languages, etc. on one campus, it's hard to unite for a common hobby that is uniquely American when many students come from different countries. I'm not saying make the campus less diverse, I'm just saying it doesn't help basketball attendance specifically. When many of you older guys attended SJ in the 70's or 80's, I'm sure it was much more homogeneous than it is today. Look at the Maryland video...not to stereotype but for the sake of the argument they appear to be mostly white kids from probably middle/upper class families with good grades since Maryland is competitive. What one demographic may value, other demographics may not. It's very common to hear different languages, see different styles, different cultures, etc. on the campus. Having a more diverse student body means they will have more diverse ideas of what is valued or what their hobbies are.
Now this is only a theory of course...I'd be curious to find a comparable school with similar size, location, and diversity as us in addition to being mainly commuters and see if the sports culture is low there as well. Look at the less diverse non-commuter schools like PC, Nova, Duke, Indiana, Maryland, Notre Dame, etc. and they all have great fans. Villanova has a huge fanbase that packs every game and they are a small, non-commuter school that gets called "Vanillanova" for its homogeneous student population of essentially almost all rich or well off white kids. I really do think it's a factor...how major a factor it is I'm not sure. I think it's interesting to think about though. It's logical when you think about it. Diverse populations = diverse thoughts = diverse perspectives = diverse hobbies = diverse priorities, etc.
Now this is only a theory of course...I'd be curious to find a comparable school with similar size, location, and diversity as us in addition to being mainly commuters and see if the sports culture is low there as well. Look at the less diverse non-commuter schools like PC, Nova, Duke, Indiana, Maryland, Notre Dame, etc. and they all have great fans. Villanova has a huge fanbase that packs every game and they are a small, non-commuter school that gets called "Vanillanova" for its homogeneous student population of essentially almost all rich or well off white kids. I really do think it's a factor...how major a factor it is I'm not sure. I think it's interesting to think about though. It's logical when you think about it. Diverse populations = diverse thoughts = diverse perspectives = diverse hobbies = diverse priorities, etc.
STJ11Redmen
Active member
Not to turn this into a race war but you're right and I've brought this up before. Look at the St John's student section, 90% white kids in a school that has around 50% white enrollment. The only thing I could think of is more white kids parents having graduated from college so they grew up watching it as opposed to solely watching the NBA. I know the reason I got big into college basketball is watching the schools that my dad went to play and going to their games.
Obviously the inner-city culture will be more geared toward the NBA too so a lot of the African-Americans, Asians and Indians from the city will be Kobe/Lebron fans or whatever and not pay much attention to college ball, especially if the city team hasn't been good, like we haven't been for years. Same concept as why most people in the Northeast aren't college football fans. We have pro teams to root for and most of us don't have any connection to a school that plays big time college football so why would we watch lesser competition? Not sure of the true reason and don't want to start a race riot but I think it's an interesting subject.
I think it's an absolutely valid thing. No reason to get weird about it...it's a logical and reasonable thing to say. Look at the student sections next time you watch a college basketball game on TV no matter what school. It's always probably at least 90% white as you noticed. When you have a homogeneous population, you are more likely to have similar hobbies, and similar backgrounds/interests. Community psychology can explain this phenomenon. Look at the Cameron Crazies, look at Maryland, look at UNC, etc. they all have pretty homogeneous student sections. It's a nice thought to picture a melting pot where everyone is on the same page, but unfortunately, that's not reality. You have kids from the inner city as the first ones in their family to go to college, you have kids like me from middle class LI, you have foreign students from Asia, South America, Europe, Africa, etc. With all of that diversity, there is bound to be a lot going on.
The truth is that homogeneously populated schools are more unified, and identify much stronger with their school when it comes to college basketball and probably other sports as well. White kids in the suburbs grow up and go to high school learning that school spirit is important and supporting your team is the right thing to do. Kids in Asia are told to value discipline and academic/career success...not so much sports. There are just so many different backgrounds and views which makes it hard to have 1 huge like-minded group that will pack our games.
If your argument is that white students are more interested in college sports than black students, I disagree. When I attended (granted it was in the "glory years") black students were very interested in the basketball team. I don't think there is any difference in the races in proportion to their relative population on campus.
I do think that there are other factors which may play into the disparity in attendance. First, I think there is a much higher white population than black in terms of resident students. That is due to socio-economic factors. Students who live on campus tend not to work, whereas commuter students tend to have after-school jobs.
If you look only at the season ticket student sections, they are mostly white but there are a large number of non-white students throughout Carnessecca. The Garden, maybe not so much. Again, socio-economic factors.
If race were the only deterrent to student attendance, then you would have CA full of white students; and the Garden would be more packed with them. Students are kept away for a variety of reasons, not the least is the culture of losing that we've fallen into the last 10 years. St. John's is still majority white, therefore it is not surprising that student attendance would be majority white.
I do think that there are other factors which may play into the disparity in attendance. First, I think there is a much higher white population than black in terms of resident students. That is due to socio-economic factors. Students who live on campus tend not to work, whereas commuter students tend to have after-school jobs.
If you look only at the season ticket student sections, they are mostly white but there are a large number of non-white students throughout Carnessecca. The Garden, maybe not so much. Again, socio-economic factors.
If race were the only deterrent to student attendance, then you would have CA full of white students; and the Garden would be more packed with them. Students are kept away for a variety of reasons, not the least is the culture of losing that we've fallen into the last 10 years. St. John's is still majority white, therefore it is not surprising that student attendance would be majority white.
I don't think you can just stop at SES...that's the quick fix approach to too many things these days IMO. Not every minority is poor and not every white person is rich. I think you have to look more at a cultural level like someone said before young blacks tend to be more inclined to the NBA than college ball. Again the school spirit thing is more valued by whites from the suburbs than blacks or asians from the inner city IMO. In the hood I'm sure they don't have the typical HS football/basketball games with the entire community supporting the team making a culture of it like they do in the suburbs. I don't see many black/asian/hispanic students in the Cameron Crazies jumping around with paint all over them probably drunk as hell. It just seems to be more of a thing white students are into and I don't really think it's deniable if you watch the games.