Gonzaga territory?

[98Jackfarmer]

Re: Gonzaga territory?

You mean when we were in the NCC and played local schools on Saturday nights? Hmm... I wonder why we had higher attendance then.

inhavent been the one on here blaming Frost have I

[CappinHard]

Re: Gonzaga territory?

inhavent been the one on here blaming Frost have I

I'm talking about things that can change our attendance in the present. No point in dwelling on how high attendance was back then. You said that you can't see how Frost is a limiting factor, I told you why it is.

[Grizzled_Jack]

Re: Gonzaga territory?

OK-- I'll use that as a segue to making a suggestion that got me some abuse about six months ago.

Why are we playing NAIA schools? Face it, USF, Augie and Northern would at least bring in a few visitor fans. Something that Presentation or Concordia isn't going to do.

I realize that about once a decade or so, a disaster will happen and the Jacks will lose. I think Augustana took Iowa down in Augie's championship year. I saw Northwest Missouri play in their championship year and think they would have been in the top half of the Summit. Lindenwood came within a couple of points of Marquette last year and they were none too good. So? Think we'd get over the humiliation in a couple of years.

I remember attending a Northern game when I was in college. (Realize that they were NAIA, but this was so long ago that there wasn't a NCAA Division II yet--just college division so humor me). I went because Bob Wachs had a reputation as sort of a proto-Bobby Knight and I was hoping he'd yell at people. There were also obnoxious Northern fans in attendance and that added to the fun. Wasn't disappointed by the overall experience and think the Jacks won by double digits. The game interested me more than games against Nebraska Wesleyan or Tarkio did. Went to those too, because students went to games in the sixties. Almost all games.

Anyway, if Northern would draw another 1500 fans over Presentation it should be done.

[goon]

Re: Gonzaga territory?

The sight lines are worse now because of the change in seating in the lower section. The ncc days the bleachers were lower which allowed the upper section better sightings even we people would stand. Plus their was more seating on the ends under the hanging baskets which allowed better sight lines instead of the new baskets which block those sight lines. Maybe I am old school but wished we used the hanging baskets. You know like duke. their is not a lot of room on their under the baselines.

[Justwin]

Re: Gonzaga territory?

OK-- I'll use that as a segue to making a suggestion that got me some abuse about six months ago.

Why are we playing NAIA schools? Face it, USF, Augie and Northern would at least bring in a few visitor fans. Something that Presentation or Concordia isn't going to do.

I realize that about once a decade or so, a disaster will happen and the Jacks will lose. I think Augustana took Iowa down in Augie's championship year. I saw Northwest Missouri play in their championship year and think they would have been in the top half of the Summit. Lindenwood came within a couple of points of Marquette last year and they were none too good. So? Think we'd get over the humiliation in a couple of years.

I remember attending a Northern game when I was in college. (Realize that they were NAIA, but this was so long ago that there wasn't a NCAA Division II yet--just college division so humor me). I went because Bob Wachs had a reputation as sort of a proto-Bobby Knight and I was hoping he'd yell at people. There were also obnoxious Northern fans in attendance and that added to the fun. Wasn't disappointed by the overall experience and think the Jacks won by double digits. The game interested me more than games against Nebraska Wesleyan or Tarkio did. Went to those too, because students went to games in the sixties. Almost all games.

Anyway, if Northern would draw another 1500 fans over Presentation it should be done.

I agree with you but we play those teams for a all but guaranteed win which is no different than the P5 schools do.

[Southeast]

Re: Gonzaga territory?

I think attendance will improve with Frost upgrades, but 50% over the long term? Hopefully you're right.

People in this area just don't seem to be that interested in going to games. Look at the SDSU Pentagon games, has one ever sold out in an awesome arena that only holds about 3,000? What's the excuse there? I know we're way better, etc, etc, but how about USD's case? They went from an arena FAR worse than current Frost to one that will likely be better than new Frost and they still have to cook the books ORU-style to show anything resembling decent attendance. We used to say "winning will take care of it", but that's clearly not the case, nor is top-level talent. It will be interesting to see what the Frost upgrades and talent of a player like Grill can do.

To get try and get the thread back on track.... I agree with whomever said UNI is a realistic target for what we hope to see SDSU basketball become.

[RabbitObsessed]

Re: Gonzaga territory?

I think some of the issues come from where SDSU draws its fanbase from. It's hard for me to drive up from Sioux Falls on a Thursday night, after school, basketball practice, etc. Only games I go to anymore are Saturday games.

[goon]

Re: Gonzaga territory?

I go to the economics of it too. People's disposable income is not getting better. And what money a lot of fans have is competing with multiple other entertainment options getting tickets for the family and food and gas etc is not a cheap night out. Also like other have said I have for years. It's a culture. It takes decades to change a culture. Ndsu football didn't happen overnight. Same with Montana football programs. Look at verm and Yankton. That region is loaded with cornhusker fans they haven't been good in 20 years but people go to their games everyyear since that's what they did for decades. I know a lot of usd fans and students who never went to a usd game but would go to multiple Nebraska games a year. Yes it's a bit different Example but it's part of growing up in their culture.

[SUPERBUNNY]

Re: Gonzaga territory?

You mean when we were in the NCC and played local schools on Saturday nights? Hmm... I wonder why we had higher attendance then.

Friday and Saturday night doubleheaders should absolutely be on the table. Summit League scheduling is simply awful. It can be done when visiting making certain trips but others would be tricky. The problem is that there are only a couple of schools in the league that actually have a chance to draw a good crowd so the majority doesn't care. That majority already has butt hurt that we have the "home crowd" for the Summit Tourney. However, if they cared about how much their student-athletes are missing school, the cost of extra nights on the road, or helping boost attendance it is an easy call. Oh, and I don't want to hear about how that is too quick of a turnaround. They don't mind asking them to play three days in a row at the SLT.

Potential Friday/Saturday trips:
SDSU & USD
NDSU & UND
PFW/ & WIU
Omaha & /UMKC or Augie (if they join)

Denver and Oral Roberts would be tough so you might have to make that trip into Friday and Sunday games.

Fans could come to Brookings Friday night, get a room, and head home after the games or stay a second night and leave on Sunday.

SUPERBUNNY

[SUPERBUNNY]

Re: Gonzaga territory?

OK-- I'll use that as a segue to making a suggestion that got me some abuse about six months ago.

Why are we playing NAIA schools? Face it, USF, Augie and Northern would at least bring in a few visitor fans. Something that Presentation or Concordia isn't going to do.

I realize that about once a decade or so, a disaster will happen and the Jacks will lose. I think Augustana took Iowa down in Augie's championship year. I saw Northwest Missouri play in their championship year and think they would have been in the top half of the Summit. Lindenwood came within a couple of points of Marquette last year and they were none too good. So? Think we'd get over the humiliation in a couple of years.

I remember attending a Northern game when I was in college. (Realize that they were NAIA, but this was so long ago that there wasn't a NCAA Division II yet--just college division so humor me). I went because Bob Wachs had a reputation as sort of a proto-Bobby Knight and I was hoping he'd yell at people. There were also obnoxious Northern fans in attendance and that added to the fun. Wasn't disappointed by the overall experience and think the Jacks won by double digits. The game interested me more than games against Nebraska Wesleyan or Tarkio did. Went to those too, because students went to games in the sixties. Almost all games.

Anyway, if Northern would draw another 1500 fans over Presentation it should be done.

We play a couple of those games as exhibitions which is pretty common. The problem is getting D1 teams to come to Brookings. Forget about P5 conferences, they have no interest in it. It doesn't matter how good of a team that we have. At the moment, losing to SDSU is a bad look in the eyes of their fanbases. Losing to Gonzaga wouldn't hurt, that would be considered a quality game, right? Thus, the numerous pages of this thread. I've talked to the coaches about this. When you have a group of seniors like we did last year that went something like 66-3 at home in their four years, yeah, they aren't real fired up about a Brookings trip. Coaches would say maybe after Wolters is gone and then say no way because of Daum. Until SDSU becomes a good game on the schedule (RPI, in eyes of other schools fanbase and coaches) it will remain to be a big time challenge.

So, we're kind of a victim of our own success.

SUPERBUNNY

[da_coach]

Re: Gonzaga territory?

Just wanted to add there are some good thoughts on here. I certainly don't have a solution. But, I'd certainly like to see more butts in the seats.

[Nidaros]

Re: Gonzaga territory?

OK-- I'll use that as a segue to making a suggestion that got me some abuse about six months ago.

Why are we playing NAIA schools? Face it, USF, Augie and Northern would at least bring in a few visitor fans. Something that Presentation or Concordia isn't going to do.

I realize that about once a decade or so, a disaster will happen and the Jacks will lose. I think Augustana took Iowa down in Augie's championship year. I saw Northwest Missouri play in their championship year and think they would have been in the top half of the Summit. Lindenwood came within a couple of points of Marquette last year and they were none too good. So? Think we'd get over the humiliation in a couple of years.

I remember attending a Northern game when I was in college. (Realize that they were NAIA, but this was so long ago that there wasn't a NCAA Division II yet--just college division so humor me). I went because Bob Wachs had a reputation as sort of a proto-Bobby Knight and I was hoping he'd yell at people. There were also obnoxious Northern fans in attendance and that added to the fun. Wasn't disappointed by the overall experience and think the Jacks won by double digits. The game interested me more than games against Nebraska Wesleyan or Tarkio did. Went to those too, because students went to games in the sixties. Almost all games.

Anyway, if Northern would draw another 1500 fans over Presentation it should be done.

Good olde Tarkio, Ralph Ginn’s Alma mater, is now part of history. Was that 1965-66? Or later! I saw Wachs in action in Aberdeen! What a character! I often wondered what it be like to be player on his team. As far as scheduling, that not an easy task as every game requires a contract which often includes negotiations. Being a newbie in D1, we end up with NAIA schools since USF and Augie generally don’t want to play us.

[JACKGUYII]

Re: Gonzaga territory?

Friday and Saturday night doubleheaders should absolutely be on the table. Summit League scheduling is simply awful. It can be done when visiting making certain trips but others would be tricky. The problem is that there are only a couple of schools in the league that actually have a chance to draw a good crowd so the majority doesn't care. That majority already has butt hurt that we have the "home crowd" for the Summit Tourney. However, if they cared about how much their student-athletes are missing school, the cost of extra nights on the road, or helping boost attendance it is an easy call. Oh, and I don't want to hear about how that is too quick of a turnaround. They don't mind asking them to play three days in a row at the SLT.

Potential Friday/Saturday trips:
SDSU & USD
NDSU & UND
PFW/ & WIU
Omaha & /UMKC or Augie (if they join)

Denver and Oral Roberts would be tough so you might have to make that trip into Friday and Sunday games.

Fans could come to Brookings Friday night, get a room, and head home after the games or stay a second night and leave on Sunday.

SUPERBUNNY

Players and coaches hate back to back games on consecutive nights. Not going to happen. Best case is Thurs-Sat.

[Mr_Tibbs]

Re: Gonzaga territory?

As someone who has been a student at State within the past decade and who spent a lot of time and energy trying to get students to attend games, I’ll add my 0.02 concerning student attendance. Disclaimer: I’ll probably bring football into this, and I apologize for contributing to thread drift. This will also be very long post, and I apologize for that too.

1. There is no doubt that the national trend of students not attending games and not caring about school spirit isn’t helping. But there are also many places that have been able to avoid that trend. The element of being “too cool” for going to games is certainly alive and well though. I shared the story last fall about mentioning the upcoming UNH playoff game to the class on campus I was teaching, and a couple of the students bragged about making it 5 years at State without attending a home game. That element might exist everywhere, but I certainly think SDSU has more than its fair share of it in the student body. I don’t know why it exists.
2. SDSU is a suitcase campus, and that is a huge contributing factor to lower than ideal student turnout. I wish it weren’t the case, but students here (and many other places that struggle with this issue) just flat out do not stay on the weekend. I’d wager to say that in the fall, at least over half of all students are headed home any given weekend, and for freshmen specifically, I’d place that number closer to 75%. Energy spent incentivizing students to come to games is wasted if they aren’t on campus. As of right now, winning teams and new facilities are apparently not enough to keep them around. I really don’t know what percent of students who are around on the weekend end up going to games, but I’m guessing it’s a higher percent than stay in Brookings to begin with. I don’t know how you fix this issue either. I knew a guy who grew up around Fayetteville in the 60’s. Back then, the University of Arkansas had a big problem with keeping freshmen there on the weekend too. Their solution was to make all freshmen take a required course that just happened to meet on Saturdays only. I’m sure it was wildly unpopular, but that just goes to show the lengths some schools have gone to in order to fix this problem.
3. Students here by and large don’t care about any college sports, let alone FCS/Mid Major college sports. Students here are way more concerned with their high school’s athletic teams than they are the Jacks or the national stage. I grew up in a different state, and it was astounding how few of the people I met while at state cared about college athletics compared to where I was from. Most of the people I met at State would go home every weekend or two. Before anyone comes in with the Ag perspective on why students might be headed home, there’s lots of ag schools out there, and many of them don’t struggle with student attendance like we do. If it were only a factor of ag kids going home to help on the farm/ranch, USD would have noticeably higher student attendance than we do. Montana State, NDSU, etc. are all ag schools too. For every ag kid I knew who went home to help on the farm, I knew a townie from Sioux Falls or Mitchell that was headed home to hang out with high school buddies. There’s a large portion of our student body that aren’t into college sports, and that makes engagement with them that much harder.
4. The worst thing that could have happened for student BBall attendance was splitting up the student section in Frost. Each side is small and awkward feeling, and I think it really kills the student atmosphere for the game. My hope would be that with the renovation coming up, put all the students on a single end. Dedicate a larger area behind one hoop for students, but keep them all together.
5. Marketing for students could be a lot better. While I was a student, emails about events would be sent out, but the format made them unreadable, and many times the emails were either late, resent, or double sent, and it added to the confusion. Social media etc. may have all been decent, but it wasn’t working. I’ll cite my UNH story in my class last Fall again: Not a single student (15+ in my class) had any clue there was a home football game (let alone a playoff game) the following Saturday. This was Thursday. I’ve seen that story repeat itself many times on campus. I’m not sure what the solution is, but whatever the current marketing strategy, I don’t think it’s working.
6. Finally, I’ll add that in my experience, SDSU students are in it in for the party, and that’s about it. This feeds right in to point #3, but everything around football (and to a lesser extent basketball) centers around the tailgating and pre/post game party, if they even make it to the game. Case in point: Illinois State football last year (and many other similar games this decade). Our students will show up in force for the first game or two while the weather is nice, Hobo Day, and either USD/NDSU. Playing a nationally ranked Valley team with major playoff implications on a random weekend in October carries about as much weight with them as playing UW-Oshkosh. They are in it for the social element, and that’s about it. It’s the same reason we haven’t seen big jumps in attendance with our recent success in football/bball: the success of the team isn’t what’s bringing them to games.

Again, I apologize for the length of the post and the thread drift, but if we’re talking about taking the next step and filling Frost, students are a part of that, and I think we’ve got some very difficult issues to solve in that realm.

Edit: I also don't mean to sound combative or "overly enlightened" in phrasing the beginning of that post in the way that I did. This was simply my experience at SDSU in relatively recent years. Many others may have valid observations and experiences that were vastly different than my own. Feel free to share.

[West-River_Jack]

Re: Gonzaga territory?

My $0.02 to the long post above. It has been a few decades since I was a student. Among my adult co-workers I see a trend which seems foreign to me and my values as a fan. Many are mainly interested in only the individual players on their fantasy teams and have less interest in any real team. I do not know if there is a similar trend among college students.