People at game - how big was Hoya fan base Friday

[HoyaSpirit]

I love hearing how large our overall fan contigent was, and how loud they were.

Are we talking 5k, 6k, 8k? How into it were they. And did they seem to boost the players or affect the momentum.

It's hard on TV to get a true sense of that kind of stuff.

I would bet there will be even a larger contigent for the NC game because of its importance and also it being a single game without the other game's fans there.

[YB]

roughly 5 K. 1/4 of the arena.

[mapei]

I fear a huge turnout for UNC. Let's hope we can match them!

[hoya95]

Yeah, I think we can make it about half and half, but it might be hard to do better than that in terms of sheer numbers. Of course, we can be a whole lot louder than they are.

[HoyaSpirit]

Yeah - they have a bigger fan base overall, but I think it's heavily NC-based so they have further to travel. And our alums are heavily in the DC-Boston corridor so hopefully we can get it to half and half. I bet it will be buzzing. And I assume the casual fans will pull for us based on Big East / northeast affinity.

[NickSixers]

I think it could be 2/3 UNC. By my estimate, they had about 1/3-1/2 of the arena last night.

[hoyas86]

NC had the most fans by far. There was a sea of powder blue at the Meadowlands.

[dajuan]

I don't buy that UNC had the most fans at the arena last night. I was there, and while there was a lot of powder blue, I think it looked like there were more Tar Heel fans because Hoya fans tend to wear different colors, whereas every Tar Heel fan wears baby blue. It's similar to the St. Louis Cardinals fans who all wear red and always look like they're overwhelming in numbers.

I think we can have more numbers than them, especially if more Hoya fans buy tickets from disconsolate BC and Vandy fans trying to recoup some of the money they sunk into the weekend.

[HoyaSinceBirth]

The UNC fans sucked. THey only cheered when they went on a run the rest of the time they were dead quiet. Hoya fans were a lot bette but the upper section was a lot better than the lower section. Wish the student were down lower where they could have more of an impact.

[EWINGthegreat33]

Even though there were more UNC fans, GTOWN was a close second. But nobody had a bigger student section than GU's.

[BigMike]

I agree that the color issue is a big factor in how people perceive the number of a team's fans their are. Hoya fans wear gray,dark blue, those teal jerseys etc.... Every UNC fan wears light blue. I think there were more UNC fans but it was closer than people might think.

[bubbrubbhoya]

I actually think that there were more GU fans than any other contingent, but our problem was that our lower-bowl presence was hurting. Both Vandy and UNC had an entire lower bowl section filled up, and I just didn't see that for the Hoyas. The upper level, though, was probably 2/3 GU and 1/3 everyone else, though. This lack of a high lower-bowl concentration hurt us because we couldn't get any stadium-wide cheers coordinated. If there had been some better coordinated Hoyas cheers, the stadium would have shook with "Let's Go Hoyas!" People at the game need to figure out how to coordinate better for tomorrow's game.

[hoyaclap]

hoyasincebirth said:

The UNC fans sucked. THey only cheered when they went on a run the rest of the time they were dead quiet. Hoya fans were a lot bette but the upper section was a lot better than the lower section. Wish the student were down lower where they could have more of an impact.

from where I was, it seemed our Hoya fans were pretty down when we were down big in the first half. I wouldn't give the UNC fans too much grief over that.

[vamosalaplaya]

I'll reiterate that at the big state schools all the fans have this thing where they wear the school colors, while at Georgetown many of us wear . . . you know, our work clothes to the game, so you can't tell how many of them there are. There were so few USC fans there that relative to them I am sure UNC sounded loud relative to them, not sure that means more than GU. I thought GU had a large contingent, many of whom didn't stay until the end of the USC game.

Watching the replay on MMOD, the crowd noise was pretty darn loud when GU made buckets at the end.

The team isn't going to feel like its a road game tomorrow.

[Gammo]

I think one must differentiate between affiliated fans and non-affiliated fans. I think there will be a 1/3 to 2/3 advantage for affiliated fans with that advantage towards the NC crowd. My guess is that we will get move of the non-affiliated fans support as we are the 2 seed and NC has had such success recently. I hope the NJ/Rutgers crowd falls in to support their blue and gray brothers from the Big East

[mrsixer123]

hoyaclap said:

hoyasincebirth said:

The UNC fans sucked. THey only cheered when they went on a run the rest of the time they were dead quiet. Hoya fans were a lot bette but the upper section was a lot better than the lower section. Wish the student were down lower where they could have more of an impact.

from where I was, it seemed our Hoya fans were pretty down when we were down big in the first half. I wouldn't give the UNC fans too much grief over that.

let the truth be told....................

[younghoya32]

I think the difference is actually the color, besides the sea of gray in the upper deck GTOWN fans wore various colors. UNC fans all had their tar heal blue on so it makes them look like there were more...just my $0.02

[mrsixer123]

vamosalaplaya said:

I'll reiterate that at the big state schools all the fans have this thing where they wear the school colors, while at Georgetown many of us wear . . . you know, our work clothes to the game, so you can't tell how many of them there are. There were so few USC fans there that relative to them I am sure UNC sounded loud relative to them, not sure that means more than GU. I thought GU had a large contingent, many of whom didn't stay until the end of the USC game.

Watching the replay on MMOD, the crowd noise was pretty darn loud when GU made buckets at the end.

The team isn't going to feel like its a road game tomorrow.

so our fans drive from the va/dc/md area in work clothes?

[mrsixer123]

unc will out number us by far. as i told a guy in nyc during the BET, we simply do not travel well b/c the majority of the hoya fans can not afford to make the trip. you have to realize that when big john made the program what it is today and won that national title, it was the first time people of his race, no matter how bad their situation was, had something they felt they could claim as theirs, ESPECIALLY in the dc area.

if you think the alums of gtown out number the fan base you are fooling yourself. in the 80's, nation-wide, if you passed through ANY "low income" area of a given city you would think gtown was located in that state. gtown hats and jackets were a fixture. to not have something gtown was simply not exceptable. why? i just told you in the previous paragraph. anyone remember one of the best bball documentaries ever made, hoop dreams? what school did one of the subjects say was his dream school?

we simply do not have the mass appeal of a similar small, prestigious school such as duke b/c the face of our program is and always will be a large african-american ("AA") male who did not apologize for being who he was. he was good enough for our admin b/c they hired him based on his qualifications and didnt give a damn about his race when so called other religious schools wouldnt dare make such a "controversial" hire.

unc on the other hand, is a huge state school and b/c of that fact alone they will outnumber us.

the bottom line is this, when america saw a large AA male and his team who happened to look like him dominate the college scene while at the same time take a social stand WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE ADMIN, i dont give a damn what anyone says, from that point on, we became public enemy number 1!

[mrsixer123]

younghoya34 said:

I think the difference is actually the color, besides the sea of gray in the upper deck GTOWN fans wore various colors. UNC fans all had their tar heal blue on so it makes them look like there were more...just my $0.02

i respect your opinion, but in my opinion, unc outnumbered us 3-to-1 and it had nothing to do with their colors. the entire upper bowl was basically filled with unc fans.

that being said, i convinced rutgers fans that they should support their fellow conference school. i thought everyone knew this is the proper thing to do, but it is not, as i received many "you know what, you're right!! go hoyas"

i just took a deep breath and moved on, but oh how i wanted to call them a dumb donkey