How do we increase basketball support?

Give the fans some confidence in the program again. They have had no reason for that before tonight.

It’s the holidays, folks have spent a lot of time and money on gifts and traveling this week. I would bet 25-30% are victims of the CNN Branch Covidians fear porn and are hunkered down.

It was pretty dead still when we made the tourney few years ago

We packed the Hump under Stansbury when he had similar “bubble” teams

Support has fallen off. And the Hump is dated but lack of support means no money to make it better.

They need to move the student section to like it was in the old days. The TV cameras were always on the students in background.
The students were behind the opponent’s goal in the second half.
The atmosphere was 100 times better even when the crowd was relatively small (4-5K). Why? Because the students were rowdy. The current seating arrangement for students totally sucks.

I do agree that TV and game starting times have hurt attendance. I also think it is economics. The girls were killing it for several years and it was cost prohibitive and exhausting for people to make back to back trips to Starkvegas for basketball games. Often you had games on Wed-Thu and/or Sat-Sun. That is a lot of travel for people from out of town.

TV has totally screwed with the game times. On a weekday they are either 6 or 8P. 6P is too early for working people especially from anywhere outside of 50 miles from campus. 8P OTOH is too late for someone driving back home after a game if it is not over until 1015-1030.

The 7P tip off was perfect for weeknight games.

All that said, this team has a lot of potential and I think crowds will be big and enthusiastic going forward. My nephew is a student and he has been to all the games except for last week and said the Hump has been rocking for the most part. He said the team fun to watch.

Last Wednesday was very understandable that there was a small crowd given we played an out of town bowl game the night before, 4P start time, no students and the weather.

We need to win, and we need to play a more exciting brand of basketball. Howland's teams do not learn anything about offense under him.

It’s like watching paint dry

I have been a fan of Howland since he was hired but he does not inspire the fan base at all. Almost like he is indifferent on the fan base. Opposite of say a Mullen or Schafer were.

Great atmosphere yesterday. Why can’t we do that for all home games and not just ole miss?

I hate how fans only care to show up for the ole miss game.

I tape the games so I do have to watch commercials, halftime etc. since I am 750 miles away, attendance is not possible. But even then I have begun to watch in speeded up fast forward and watching the score. When we came alive in the Ky. Game I started watching again, only to taken up and then dumped. Then followed by the TT game, wow. Not a fan of Howland, better than the one prior, but not the one we need. Players seems to be undisciplined on offense, some poor shot selection with the 3 ball. Without Molinar they would likely have a losing record. Not sure I would pay good money to watch them….

Pete Thamel reporting Howland expected to be fired today.


Any idea on potential replacements we would like to see?