Originally Posted by
dawg80
Attendance for hoops will always be an issue. North Louisiana is not basketball country.
I attended EVERY home game in the seasons of 83-84 and 84-85. If there was ever a MBB team at Tech that deserved support, and earned that support, it was that team. We went 26-7 and 29-3 those two years. We were nationally ranked. And went 3-2 in the Big Dance those two years. How many Big Dance wins does Tech have in its entire history? Just a handful. This was no small accomplishment.
Yes, attendance, by Tech's MBB standards, was pretty good, especially for the big conference match-ups with Lamar, USL, and McNeese (with Joe Dumars), and of course with the little JUCO down I-20. But, games vs. North Texas, UTA, and non-conference games vs. Rice, Weber State to name two, was pretty sparse. They might have announced 3,000 but there was only about half that many butts in seats. That was at a time when Weber State was coming off its own Big Dance appearance and was "pretty good." I remember seeing the schedule that year and was excited to see us hosting a team like that. A quality non-conference opponent in Ruston! But, apparently North Louisiana didn't get the memo that it should be excited too.
Now, the 1985 Conference tourney, in Ruston, was well-attended. Just about a sell-out, well, it might have been an actual sell-out with a few no-shows. But, a lot of that was due to the visiting schools, like the JUCO, USL, Lamar bringing some fans, like several hundred. As I recall, we beat the JUCO then Lamar to win the auto-bid. One of those had upset McNeese to keep them out of the semis.
Legit crowds of about 3,500 were common for the big games, vs. USL and vs. Lamar, especially. Maybe even 4,000. But, it's a 7,000-seat arena. There was room for more folks.