Fan behavior tonight was RIDICULOUS

[hoyarob]

1. Whoever left early should voluntarily give up their season tickets. You're an embarrassment and don't even have the lame "had to catch the Metro" crap excuse.

2. The Ass hole chant is the stupidest thing ever. It's juvenile, and beyond that...what possible positive impact for the team? Editedes off the refs, fires up the opposition. Something like "T him up, T him up" would work just as well and rises above the junior high level.

3. BullEdited chant needs to be used much more judiciously. Tonight it just became the boy who cried wolf on every call both fair or not against Georgetown. We're not Duke, we don't whine.

4. Blaming the refs is ridiculous, they didn't lose the game. Georgetown lost the game. We earned the "overrated" label with this performance tonight. Fans need to just take it, instead of yelling at the opponent's fans AFTER THE GAME. Nothing screams "sore loser" more than stuff like that.

5. It's just one game. This team is still figuring itself out. The door is OBVIOUSLY still wide open for a great season.

I don't blame Hoya Blue but they need to become part of the solution.

[HometownHoya]

Throughout the entire game Hoya Blue was trying to keep most of the cheers positive and keep them going. The only problem comes when there are really only 10 of us starting cheers, there are many more other students and alumni, and people tend to focus on the negative when things are going badly, not the positive.

But I do agree, the Bull* cheer did get used way too much and screaming at the other fans after the game is poor sportsmanship (an exception would be those fans that came over to us, and he deserved that).

[jacktheb05]

HoyaBlue and the rest of the students should quit being so loud when we're on offense. "Let's Go Hoyas" is a great cheer, but there's no need to scream it as loud as you can when JTIII and John Wallace are trying to run our offense. Let's be crazy loud while we're on defense but when we're trying to score, let's let the boys do their work.

-Keenan Steiner, Class of 2007

[NickSixers]

I agree to a certain extent. The bull* chant is overused. Against popular opinion, we do commit fouls too. #42 deserved some of what he got. We lost the game. Maybe the refs helped us, but we lost.
I don't know if there is a solution. A relatively small portion of the student ticket holders are big fans who follow the game, visit this site, etc. There are thousands of kids at games. The mob mentality will always win, and there is a portion of students who attend games who don't understand the rules. (i.e. I tried to describe goaltending to a group of girls but they didn't grasp the concept.) I think that this would/does happen at any school where a large group of students go to games.

[Cambridge]

hoyarob said:

5. It's just one game. This team is still figuring itself out. The door is OBVIOUSLY still wide open for a great season.

Obviously? Wide-open? Really? Hmmmm....I'm not so confident.

[afirth]

if anyone has an idea on how 8 hoya blue board members can stop a crowd of 2000 students from using the BS cheer, besides printing something about sportsmanship on the cheer sheets, i'd like to hear it.

[FLHoya]

I don't want to post it in a thread b/c I'm the type that would rather collect my thoughts on an issue such as this one. But my opinion/take will be in the recap that will hopefully be posted tomorrow morning.

[TrueHoyaBlue]

well, there are still 26+ games to play this season. I'd say that's pretty wide open (which is different than saying it's gonna happen).

[Eurostar]

#42 and #31 were jawing all night at our guys. they deserved to be cheered at.... but they did back it up tonight. No one left the game early... i guess if you call 19.9 seconds left and down by 12 early then yeah some did. at that point does it really matter?

[afirth]

true fans never leave a game early.

[Oh My!]

afirthionado said:

if anyone has an idea on how 8 hoya blue board members can stop a crowd of 2000 students from using the BS cheer, besides printing something about sportsmanship on the cheer sheets, i'd like to hear it.

Well, for starters, print it on the cheer sheet. As mentioned above, we are NOT DUKE. We constantly berate fans of other programs for their behavior, but the first phone call I made on my way home tonight was to a lifelong Terp fan. When I used to say that his fans are classless (F-U JJ chants), he would respond with "every school is like that. Well, tonight I have to agree with him. Our student fans were neither supportive, nor sportsmanlike, nor good representatives of the finest (in my opinion) Catholic institution in America.

The worst 2 comments I heard were: as an ODU player was approaching the free throw line late, a student yelled "he's *bleeping* [sleeping with] the referee, so he gets calls"; and 1 particular individual called both # 42 & one of the referees his "B**ch".

Low class---You SHOULD be ashamed of yourselves. I'm embarrassed myself & I'm a proud Hoya alum.

[afirth]

i agree that HB should do all that it can to encourage sportsmanlike conduct, cheers, and behavior. but posting signs/putting things on the cheer sheets isn't always going to stop a crowd.

[hoyarob]

After the Duke game, we got an email "a message from Coach Thompson + Hoya Blue" thanking us for our support. It would be an overreaction after just this one incident, but if it continues...I think an email to the student body (or just to season ticket holders) would be appropriate. I guess that would be an Athletic Department thing not Hoya Blue. There's a difference between being loud intimdating and raucous and just plain stupid. True fans need to educate the ignorant masses.

[rkerby15]

I know this might anger some of you but the as long as the bullEdited chant isn't overabused I am all for it. But tonight didn't really call for much use of the chant. And #41 and #31 deserved every ass**** chant they got.

Question: When was the last time the Hoyas lost in McDonough?

[hoyarob]

My bigger concern on the ass hole chant is that, although its rare...its within the referee's purview to call a technical foul on the crowd, if its the home team. So it could hypothetically hurt the team if the ref has an itchy trigger finger.

[afirth]

rkerby15 said:

Question: When was the last time the Hoyas lost in McDonough?

1982 I believe

[Just Cos]

If we had an on campus arena we would have won this game

[TrueHoyaBlue]

cosgravm said:

If we had an on campus arena we would have won this game

Post of the year!

[Oh My!]

I don't know about the year, but DEFINITELY the post of the night!

[HfieldHoya08]

minionhoya said:

#42 and #31 were jawing all night at our guys. they deserved to be cheered at.... but they did back it up tonight. No one left the game early... i guess if you call 19.9 seconds left and down by 12 early then yeah some did. at that point does it really matter?

People from the non-student section were definitely leaving with about a minute/ a minute+ to go. It's annoying that people were leaving early, and its not something I would do personally, but at a certain point, its just painful to watch the team just fouling repeatedly to get possession when with sub-30 seconds left and down by 10 or so it would take an absolute miracle to get the W.

Also I think that the fans being more explicit (Bull*, etc.) has something to do with being in McDonough where you're right in the opposing team's ear and they can hear you. Its more gratifying to heckle when you feel like you're making a difference, which is why I think it seemed more extreme tonight than it ever does at Verizon. I'd imagine we don't see cheering/jeering as such there, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear some of that again at the next game in McD in December.