More than 2,000 student basketball tickets remain as deadline approaches

IU Athletics Director Fred Glass said he couldn’t have imagined a student section with seats to spare when he was an IU student.

But unless there is drastic increase in men’s basketball student season tickets sold before the group tickets deadline Friday, that will be the situation for the third-straight season.

As of Tuesday, about 5,300 of the 7,800 tickets available in the student allotment had been sold. The goal is to break last year’s mark of 6,400 tickets sold if a sellout cannot be reached, Glass said.

It’s a disheartening number for Glass, who had seen sellouts from when he was a student in the 1980’s until as recently as the 2007-08 season.

“They sold twice as many tickets as they had spaces available, so you would buy a season ticket, but you’d only go to half the games,” Glass said about his time as a student.

Glass said if ticket sales hit the undersold three-peat, he might reevaluate the number of tickets in the student allotment in Assembly Hall and if it should be decreased. 

He cautioned, however, that he would be hesitant to make such a move.
“It’s what makes the place a hard place to play,” Glass said. “When that place is rocking, it’s because of the students. So I’d be really hesitant to cut back on that because I think that’s what really makes that place special.”

If a change is made, it would be a blow to the stadium’s calling card of having the largest student section in the country. It’s also a change the players do not want to see.

Junior guard Verdell Jones said the student support lifts them in big games, citing last year’s close loss to Purdue and dramatic victory against Minnesota as examples.

“When it gets down to crunch time, and we’re down by four or up by four, and we want to run, it just gets loud and scary in there,” Jones said. “That’s something that gives you chills.”

The new “Front Line” — which makes select seats in the main lower level first-come, first-served — is one way both Glass and the players feel will drive student attendance back toward the sell-out mark.

Sophomore guard Jordan Hulls said he fully supported the idea when he heard it, as it gives incentives for students to arrive early and give opponents a hard time.

“We’d love if before the tip, and even when we are warming up, it was packed and heckling the other team,” Hulls said. “That’s what we get a lot when we go on the road.”

While the ticket numbers are not yet where Glass would like to see them, he said it’s a matter of perspective in the Big Ten.

Students at Purdue were turned away at 7 p.m. the night before the 1,779 tickets for the school’s “Paint Crew” general admission section went on sale, said assistant ticket manager Cindy Bailey.

But Mackey Arena’s student allotment is 2,800 less than Assembly
Hall’s, and Bailey said a preseason sellout of student season tickets is a rare occurrence.

For Northwestern basketball and football games, there is no preseason student season ticket sale. Students are admitted with a swipe of their ID card the day of the game.

Glass said even though student season tickets reached a low point in the 2008-09 season, selling 4,500 tickets, schools have called him asking how they sell so many season packages.

“Four thousand and five hundred tickets would be the envy of any other program in the Big Ten, and for us it’s a down year,” he said.

Glass said he realizes that the team’s combined 16 wins the past two seasons have been a major factor in the comparatively low numbers, but he sees IU has a beacon of success given the modern times.

“Between the economy and the ability to get most of the games on TV, it’s a phenomenon around the country that student ticket sales are down,” Glass said. “And to some extent, we’re bucking that trend, as we still have a big number, and that number is increasing."