Something has to change with our basketball environment/program....

[Tide & Titans]

It doesn't matter where the students are when you win 85% of the games in the building.

It does when 75% of those wins come against non-conference nobodies.
I personally blame Mark's Madness for ruining the game athmosphere.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Steele was given a lengthy period to stay off the leg and heal in the early season. It's not so easy as "more rest = healed player." It's hard for me to believe that, as many times as this has been brought up and discussed, there doesn't seem to be any retention at all. It (the misnamed "high ankle sprain") is an unpredictable injury. Rest doesn't always help. In fact, it hasn't helped in this case. It's possible that it's a permanent injury or one that may take years to heal. I can knock CMG and his staff for a lot of reasons. Their handling of RS isn't one of them...

 

[pvilleguru]

It does when 75% of those wins come against non-conference nobodies.
I personally blame Mark's Madness for ruining the game athmosphere.

you're kidding, right? without mark's madness, there would not be an atmosphere. it's hard to be loud when no one else contributes. many times tonight, marks madness tried to get the crowd up and cheering, but it didn't happen until 1 minute left. then they got up to leave.

 

[Probius]

How many times have we heard that our basketball program is on the verge of greatness? It seems like as long as I can remember we have been saying Bama is sooo close, next year we are going to be awesome. I like CMG and he has brought in a lot of great talent. It just seems like under CMG we are always going to be close but not quite there.

 

[Will5900]

pvilleguru - I agree with you that no one else was getting involved in the game. So that means Marks Madness should just stops cheering and just stand there. If they are going to be known as the “hardcore” basketball students then act like it and cheer. If not then why is there even a group? If a gathering of 200 people in marks madness day in day out can not make noise every time the opposing team has a possession then that is REALLY sad. Have you ever been to a different schools basketball arena? Our home court advantage is terrible. I mean disgraceful. Thus we need to change something. The student should be on the floor which would create much more intensity as well a rile up the older folks. As well as maybe make basketball actually fun to go to.

 

[CaliforniaTide]

pvilleguru - I agree with you that no one else was getting involved in the game. So that means Marks Madness should just stops cheering and just stand there. If they are going to be known as the “hardcore” basketball students then act like it and cheer. If not then why is there even a group? If a gathering of 200 people in marks madness day in day out can not make noise every time the opposing team has a possession then that is REALLY sad. Have you ever been to a different schools basketball arena? Our home court advantage is terrible. I mean disgraceful. Thus we need to change something. The student should be on the floor which would create much more intensity as well a rile up the older folks. As well as maybe make basketball actually fun to go to.

Part of the problem is not necessarily the group, it's the location and size of the group. I'm part of Mark's Madness but was underwhelmed this as to what the group does.

As far as I know, the group is only 1,000 students big and the stadium people put us in this one corner. Now I've seen a lot more students show up for the games and sit with us and that got me thinking. We need to expand the student section. I know the big money alums like they're seats but students are supposed to be what get the place loud. I don't see why they can't let students take up the entire side where Mark's Madness currently is (they let us take up half of that side). Allow membership to increase or disband it altogether but only let students sit where the student section is.

Finally, it's really hard to stay loud when our team plays so uninspired as they have this season. It's gotten to the point where we're down by 15 and if someone makes a dunk to cut the deficit down to 13, we go nuts. Good basketball play goes hand in hand with good crowd support.

 

[Will5900]

https://www.seats3d.com/ncaa/university_virginia/


Agree with most all you have said. What needs to be done is to expand the change the seating in to a L shape like UVA did in their new facility. (for you all that dont feel like looking at the link, basically it has students behind the basket and wraps the students section around one side of the court till it gets the the other basket. Leaving under one basket for donors and one full court side for donors. It is basically is 2 L shapes that make a rectangle. From students to the Alumni. If all the students were near the floor it would create a much more frenzied atmosphere rather than throwing the majority of students in to the rafters. It would entergize the entire crowd because half the alumni would be above the students and would feed off of the noise and intensity that is being charged. Until this changes the games will be the same old boring thing for most the fans because of the atmosphere.

 

[pvilleguru]

if anything, give us the other half of the baseline. this is one of the only places i have seen that doesn't at least give the students the whole base line. i agree with the guy earlier that said the closer the students are to the court, the more involved they would be. the first 10-15 rows cheer pretty loudly.

 

[Bama 3:16]

Student section has been a subject of debate for the last 15 years with location & how many seats students should get.

As for the suggestion that we should give the other end of the baseline to students, that was done in 1996-98 and it did not make a difference. Half the time, the seats they put there for the students went un used. When they were full, their wasn't an intimidating environment anyway. The band was placed right beside the visitors bench too on the floor.

Chairback seats were put in place in 1999 on the floor and behind the basket, sold to fat cats with money and you can't buy them now. They're renewed every year and that is not going to change nor is the athletic department going to kick out high paying customers for students who may or may not fill up those seats.

My current season tix are in Section R, which use to be part of the student section when I was at UA, 1992-96, but has since been opened up to the ticket buying public because their was not enough student support to fill the seats. Even this year, only LSU was a hard sell out for student tickets, a ton of empty seats in the student section to my left were clearly visible for the other games, including UK & AU.

I personally do not think they should move any student seats because they are fine where they are. Only a handful (25-50) of the hard core Mark's Madness guys deserve to sit down close to the court because they are there every game regardless if we're playing Lipscomb or Kentucky. As for the majority of Mark's Madness, they show up only at the bigger SEC games.

 

[TideRoller]

if anything, give us the other half of the baseline. this is one of the only places i have seen that doesn't at least give the students the whole base line. i agree with the guy earlier that said the closer the students are to the court, the more involved they would be. the first 10-15 rows cheer pretty loudly.

That would be against SEC regulations. The SEC dictates that a student section cannot occupy a section directly next to the opposing bench.

 

[gdodds]

Some said the same thing about Saban--and he's here. We need to change the attitude that says we can't get a proven BB coach to come to Tuscaloosa. Money will get them anywhere and we need to think NCAA BB championships rather than say we are as good as we will ever be. Fl doesn't think that way--and neither should we. Everyone should be working every day to build championship teams in every sport.

Produce a championship caliber team and Coleman will be jumping for every game. And, BB can produce $'s for the Athletic Dept. I just don't like being an also ran. We need to aggressively press for setting the standard rather than producing red meat for others to chew on.

Just listen, we are holding our breath to see if we make the NCAA Tournement. If we do we will go out early. We need to have teams concerned about playing us rather than looking forward to another win as they move up. It will take a coach who knows the game and can build and lead. We don't have that caliber of coach today. If we dis we'd be in the hunt every year rather than crossing our fingers and "hoping."

 

[pvilleguru]

Bama 3:16. i see what you are saying, but many of those events took place in the mid 90's right? that was during the hobbs era which i hear was not a good time. i think more students are getting into the basketball team. many don't come because they don't want to sit so high.

 

[LegionField]

pvilleguru - I agree with you that no one else was getting involved in the game. So that means Marks Madness should just stops cheering and just stand there. If they are going to be known as the “hardcore” basketball students then act like it and cheer. If not then why is there even a group? If a gathering of 200 people in marks madness day in day out can not make noise every time the opposing team has a possession then that is REALLY sad. Have you ever been to a different schools basketball arena? Our home court advantage is terrible. I mean disgraceful. Thus we need to change something. The student should be on the floor which would create much more intensity as well a rile up the older folks. As well as maybe make basketball actually fun to go to.

I see your point as a student. My point is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". If we were going .500 every year at Coleman, I would view this as a problem.