NIT Opener:Western Michigan vs. Marquette

[GUHoya07]

Not sure how many of you saw the game but Western Michigan beat down Marquette pretty easily last night, winning 54-40 at the Bradley Center. Marquette looked absolutely horrible and it was really painful watching them without Travis Diener.

Also, as I was watching the game I noticed how incredibly empty the Bradley Center was. Yeah, it was on Monday night, only one day after the brackets were announced so Im sure that had something to do with it, but there was a large contingent of WMU fans who were louder than the Marquette fans all game long. I checked the box score this morning and attendance for the game is listed at 3,181-ouch.

[Grandpa]

GUHoya2007 said:

Not sure how many of you saw the game but Western Michigan beat down Marquette pretty easily last night, winning 54-40 at the Bradley Center. Marquette looked absolutely horrible and it was really painful watching them without Travis Diener.

Also, as I was watching the game I noticed how incredibly empty the Bradley Center was. Yeah, it was on Monday night, only one day after the brackets were announced so Im sure that had something to do with it, but there was a large contingent of WMU fans who were louder than the Marquette fans all game long. I checked the box score this morning and attendance for the game is listed at 3,181-ouch.

That's a good point regarding the proximity of the Marquette game announcement and the corresponding detrimental effect it had on attendance (of course, there are likely other factors as well). In any case, hopefully the extra couple of days notice will help to stir up some interest so that we can get a crowd of at least 10,000. Am I being too optimistic?

[TrueHoyaBlue]

I just bought 16 tickets for tomorrow night, so hopefully that can help us get to a more respectable number...

[SFHoya99]

GUHoya2007 said:

Not sure how many of you saw the game but Western Michigan beat down Marquette pretty easily last night, winning 54-40 at the Bradley Center. Marquette looked absolutely horrible and it was really painful watching them without Travis Diener.

Also, as I was watching the game I noticed how incredibly empty the Bradley Center was. Yeah, it was on Monday night, only one day after the brackets were announced so Im sure that had something to do with it, but there was a large contingent of WMU fans who were louder than the Marquette fans all game long. I checked the box score this morning and attendance for the game is listed at 3,181-ouch.

Marquette lost all three of its point guards this year, and I think had one scholarship guard. Just ugly, apparently.

Next year they have a frosh PG prospect, and that's it. He's supposedly pretty good, but their backups will be 2s.

[Big Dog]

Not the way you want to enter the Big East. I think the fan base has been really jolted this year. Should be interesting to see what kind of enthusiasm they come out with next year.

Of course, they'll probably start something silly like 13-0 again on the back of a pathetically weak non-con schedule, so that always helps get the crowds out for those first few conference games.

[FOTP]

If we get 10K I'll eat my shoe. No chance based on the timing and the limited season ticket holder base.

Just my thought. If we got 7,500 or around our average I'd be impressed.

All bets are off if they basically give away seats and allow anyone in off the street.

[GIGAFAN99]

We won't get 10K. It's post-season but it is Boston University. There's only so much we can draw versus an America East team, regardless of the situation.

[NCHoya]

FOTP said:

If we get 10K I'll eat my shoe. No chance based on the timing and the limited season ticket holder base.

Just my thought. If we got 7,500 or around our average I'd be impressed.

All bets are off if they basically give away seats and allow anyone in off the street.

I think your shoe is safe, 6000 would be an accomplishment on 3 days notice.

Regarding Marquette, how crappy do they feel signing Creen to that huge contract only to find out it was Dwayne Wade that made that team an NCAA contender?

[Deleted]

If we get 10K, I'll eat FOTP's other shoe....
I think 6K would be a good crowd under the circumstances.

[FOTP]

6K would be solid and they should open it up for some other folks at the last minute.

I don't think Crean is that bad. However, I don't think he's taken advantage of the FInal Four run and the move to the Big East in terms of recruiting as much as he should.

I still think he's a good coach. They may struggle next year without Diener, but they have a good program.

[Fan Of The Game]

I'll predict 4800.

Aside from everything mentioned here, there is no built in season-ticket base to build off of.

As for getting a bump because it's post-season...I just don't know. I think of this as more pre-season for 05-06. It's the pre-pre-season NIT.

[EasyEd]

Western slapping Marquette should be a reminder that these "unknowns", like Boston U., can be dangerous.

[SFHoya99]

This isn't an easy game. BU may not have a lot of big wins, but they hung with BC better than us and had a good year.

If we play our best, I don't think we'll have trouble. But otherwise, it will be quite a game.

[JohnJacquesLayup]

An interesting story relating to BU: They had a recruit coming with the last name McLaughlin-Williams. He was a good prospect out of my former high school, South Lakes High in Reston, VA. Unfortunately he couldn't follow the footsteps of Grant Hill and Michael Jackson (both out of South Lakes) because he is still in a legal battle with the Feds over a counterfeiting ring. He and his friends got busted for selling fake $20's at discounted rates all over the east coast, caught by a waiter they used one on at Silver Diner.

[Nevada Hoya]

JohnJacquesLayup said:

An interesting story relating to BU: They had a recruit coming with the last name McLaughlin-Williams. He was a good prospect out of my former high school, South Lakes High in Reston, VA.

Ooooo, did you go to school with Alan Webb?

[JohnJacquesLayup]

Sure did! He was a year or two behind me.

[coachmcguirk]

Last night's game was awful -- Marquette had one foot on the bus ten minutes in. Even worse was listening to Brent Cheeseburger do his amateur dramatics in an arena full of empty chairs.

[FLHoya]

GUHoya2007 said:

Also, as I was watching the game I noticed how incredibly empty the Bradley Center was. Yeah, it was on Monday night, only one day after the brackets were announced so Im sure that had something to do with it, but there was a large contingent of WMU fans who were louder than the Marquette fans all game long. I checked the box score this morning and attendance for the game is listed at 3,181-ouch.

You think that's bad--remember the 2003 NIT First Round opener we played at Thompson-Boling Arena against Tennessee? Now THAT was an empty crowd.

There wasn't a "next day" excuse there--the game was played during the middle of the week. There may have been some sense of "who cares" because if memory serves, Tennessee was one of the teams that felt wronged by the NCAA selection committee that year. They certainly PLAYED like they didnt care that night.

Thompson Boling is the 2nd largest on campus basketball facility in the country according to its website, seating 24,535 fans.

The attendance for GU-Tennessee in the 2003 NIT?

3,011.

That means it was less than 1/8 full.

If I had to make a guess as to the MCI attendance tomorrow night, I'd go with the same guess as I had for the Providence game--6,483 (the score of the UConn game previous to the PC game). Of course, the Providence game attendance turned out to be 11,863, so maybe there's hope for a big turnout. Just don't be disappointed--the NIT itself is a great opportunity for the team and die hard fans, but it's not something you run to the box office for.

[Grandpa]

FLHoya said:

If I had to make a guess as to the MCI attendance tomorrow night, I'd go with the same guess as I had for the Providence game--6,483 (the score of the UConn game previous to the PC game). Of course, the Providence game attendance turned out to be 11,863, so maybe there's hope for a big turnout. Just don't be disappointed--the NIT itself is a great opportunity for the team and die hard fans, but it's not something you run to the box office for.

The nice thing is that we can have a second "Senior" night in honor of Ramell and DJ. And hopefully Ramell will actually get into the game for at least a few minutes (since JT3 really couldn't put Ramell in during the Providence game).

[FLHoya]

Grandpa said:

The nice thing is that we can have a second "Senior" night in honor of Ramell and DJ. And hopefully Ramell will actually get into the game for at least a few minutes (since JT3 really couldn't put Ramell in during the Providence game).

I hope they save some minutes for "SHOM-nick" too. That guy's a BEAST in the N.I.T.!!