Student tickets go on sale

With Midnight Madness 18 days away, the time has come for students to start thinking about putting away their football pom-poms, closing the tailgating cooler and beginning to focus on the hardwood. \nStudent season tickets for the IU men's basketball team went on sale Sunday to the delight of some, and the dismay of many.\nCompared to years past, this year's student season ticket package is designed to work differently. Students will receive tickets to a minimum of six games, with the possibility for the IU Ticket Office to add more games to the packages depending on how many students buy tickets. The last two season ticket offerings had packages announced as 10 or 11 games and were then decreased to six or seven games because an unanticipated amount of students bought season tickets. \nAccording to an April Indiana Daily Student article, IU provides the largest number of student seats of any Big Ten school. Last season, the 12,000 student tickets sold ranked among the highest number in the country and were four times higher than the next school, Purdue, with about 3,300. Of Assembly Hall's 17,257 seats, 7,800 were devoted to students last season.\nFor many upperclassmen especially, the thought of not being able to see the Hoosiers as often as they would like is disappointing and frustrating. \n"For the seniors, we've been here for four years and every year we've got to see less games. Now, we get a half a season," senior Jamie Greenbaum said. "The University needs to provide more tickets for students or find out a better way to do it."\nIn the last few years, student ticket packages have diminished in size. During the 2001-02 season, students received all the games in the ticket package.\n"Every student deserves the right to order basketball tickets, but it is also frustrating to true fans when students purchase season tickets and only attend a few games," junior Kevin Anderson said.\nThis year's student ticket packages cost $11 per game, plus an $8 service fee -- for a total charge of $74. If the ticket office adds more games to student packages, an additional $11 per game will be added to the total, but a service fee will not.\nIf students purchase their tickets by the Oct. 8 deadline, the Ticket Office e-mail stated that students can be guaranteed seats.\nStudents can buy their tickets in groups of eight, allowing them to sit together for all home games. \nThe six games students will receive will be chosen from a pool of 12 including eight Big Ten games; Bellarmine University Nov. 4; Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Nov. 12; University of North Carolina Dec. 1 and Notre Dame Dec. 8.\nThe only games not offered to students are those during which school is not in session for Thanksgiving break and for winter break. \n"I think because of Indiana being known as a top notch program and having deep roots, students should be rewarded by seeing more basketball games," sophomore Neil Ackerson said. \nThis year, students will not have to visit Assembly Hall with their checks in hand to purchase tickets. In collaboration with Ticketmaster, students were given an account number and a pin number in the e-mail, which they could then access a Ticketmaster page on the www.iuhoosiers.com Web site. The e-mail was only sent to students who purchased tickets last season.\n"When I got the e-mail, I was excited that it was going to be a lot easier and convenient to purchase tickets this year, however there's a great chance that by using e-mail more students will be become aware of the process of how to purchase tickets and this could in return lower the amount of games each student receives," Anderson said.\nLast season, IU ranked seventh in the country in home attendance, according to the 2004 National College Basketball Attendance report, compiled by the NCAA. The Hoosiers averaged 16,487 fans per game last season -- 770 less than the 17,257 capacity for Assembly Hall.\n-- Contact senior writer Josh Weinfuss at jweinfus@indiana.edu.