Grand Canyon University
The Havocs support the Grand Canyon University basketball team, but also entertain the rest of the spectators.
The posture of the man in front of me does not change for two hours. The way he sits — scowling, with his arms stubbornly crossed — is a body language translation of the word “harumph.” As the Wisconsin Badgers men’s basketball team struggles to keep its Jan. 21 game against Michigan State close, he doesn’t once display anything approaching enthusiasm.
He’s apparently unimpressed by deft passes, blocked shots, precise execution on offense. His red sweatshirt is the only sign that he hasn’t been forced to attend the game against his will.
His demeanor mirrors that of many Badgers hoops fans, whose default setting is seated and sedate. A big Wisconsin steal will earn polite applause. A slam dunk or three-pointer will elicit a mild roar. An attempt by the DJ (yes, there’s a DJ at the Kohl Center) to start a “De! Fense!” chant is a nonstarter.
Despite near-sellout attendance, I can hear the squeak of sneakers and Michigan State coach Tom Izzo barking from my nosebleed seats. Led by the dynamic Johnny Davis, the Badgers are 17-3 and tied for first place in the Big Ten, but their fans are bored and boring.
After the game — an 86-74 Michigan State victory — Izzo panders to the home team fans, mentioning former Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan, whose teams often upset the Spartans in the early 2000s with the conference title on the line in a much more raucous Kohl Center.
“Thank God for the masks,” he says, suggesting the mandated COVID-19 measures muffled the sound of a “crazy” crowd. “It was a hell of an atmosphere.”
I challenge Izzo’s accuracy in a tweet which gets more of a response than I anticipate.
“So hard to watch the apathy from hours away. What is the point of being there if you are going to just sit there?” writes one fan.
“Something needs to be done. The middle of the court sideline is a dead zone,” writes another.
“Go to a UW women’s volleyball match. It’s deafening and we all wear masks,” advises a third.
Others blame the aging demographic of fans sitting in the good seats, but there’s plenty of criticism for the unenthusiastic student section as well.
Certainly, ticket buyers aren’t under any obligation to do anything other than sit and watch. But games with rowdy crowds are so much more fun. I learned this as a kid, when my dad and I attended games at University of Minnesota’s Williams Arena, an old barn that could get rocking with roars from the crowd that made your hair stand on end.
And I sat in the student section at the UW Field House in the late '80s and early '90s, when the basketball teams weren’t very good, but we got loud. Someone distributed newsletters before each game, attempting to organize the chaos into choreographed cheers. The visiting team’s bench was close to the students and it was clear at times that the intensity caused players, and even coaches, to lose their cool.
But even if a raucous environment doesn’t contribute to a competitive advantage, it might help fill more seats by simply adding to the entertainment factor. According to reporting from the Wisconsin State Journal’s Todd Milewski, men’s basketball crowd sizes dipped in the 2019-20 season to the lowest numbers ever recorded at the Kohl Center. While the UW athletic department publicizes attendance based on ticket sales, Milewski requested the number of tickets scanned at the gates, representing actual butts in seats.
That season, when the Badgers’ home record was 15-1, an average of just 11,801 fans showed up to games out of a capacity of just over 17,000. That represented a 7 percent drop from the previous year. There was no attendance last year, due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Meanwhile, YouTube is full of video evidence that the student sections at schools like Arizona State, Utah State, Gonzaga and Michigan State (home of the “Izzone”) provide plenty of entertainment for other ticket holders in the arena.
At Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, fans install an app on their phones that syncs up with the arena’s pregame light show. The Havocs, as GCU’s student section is called, elect officers and coordinate with the athletic department and cheer squads to program gametime fun. GCU has competed in Division I for only a few years, but might have the best home basketball game experience in the country.
I refuse to believe UW fans are not capable of doing something similar. But the addition of that DJ and renaming of the student section from the Grateful Red to Area Red was what has most recently passed for innovation in the Kohl Center.
In the short term, it would be great to see some fans yell during critical defensive possessions, or even jump to their feet after a clutch three-pointer or drive to the hoop. You know, behave like actual sports fans.
