Recovering Journalist made a comment in the Karrington Ward/EMU thread about this. I was thinking about a few things while watching last night, and one of them was attendance.

First, regarding attendance. Because we're almost annually the leader in the MAC (or top two) for something like the last twenty years or more, we seem to make it into something that's overly important. I'm proud that we support OUr teams better than most of the rest of the conference as a whole, but last night led me to think of this in a different way.

Watching the game at FGCU, at Alico Arena, made me realize that having 9,000+ in the building means less if they aren't loud. And friends, last night Alico was loud - at least through the ESPN3 broadcast. I think I read that Alico Arena has a capacity of 4600 to 5000? If they fill it every night like they did last night, I have to believe it creates a great home court advantage.

Now, don't take this as me saying The Convo ISN'T any of these things. Obviously, it certainly can be better than that at it's best. Sometimes though, I wonder how much better it could be if we could get more people closer to the floor. I also wonder what it might be like if capacity could be reduced by a couple thousand, making it 'feel' and look more full when there are 8500 or 9000 in the house.

The last thing I noted last night was the scoreboard they had. Clearly, it wasn't a marvel of modern technology. BUT, it did lead me to say, "why can't we just have one of those?" It was basic, and therefor I'd have to imagine far more affordable than the $1mil that I've seen quoted on here for a board with HD video.

Those are just my thoughts from observing their home court. I'd surely like to see us play games like last night more often in November and December. That's a good team, and an exciting match-up to watch.

Let's just gut Bentley, put the old court back in there, call it Peoples Gym (used to be Men's Gym) and we'd have standing room only crowds every game. And, yes, that place used to be very loud!

Bobcat Trivia: Extra bonus points for the first person who can correctly identify the former location of Women's Gym.

Probably true. Getting a couple hundred people closer to the floor might help though. I love, love The Convo. I'm also finding myself liking these newer little bandboxes like FGCU has for the noise factor.

Not sure how you get people closer to the floor when we actually have fans sitting on the floor. Get rid of all the energy draining promos and the piped in music and let the game and band take over and it will get loud.

I'd love to see some sort of blocking/curtaining of the light green seats. MAke the Convo look smaller - which makes the crowd look bigger.

We get 7,000 an the perception of someone in the arena for the firs time is "where is everyone, this place is empty...."

Where Alden sits.

Yes. And, you are right, it's not going to happen.

Surprisingly, both the morning AND the afternoon graduation ceremonies fill up the Convo.

Unfortunately, Alan is right here, they play way too much muzak and there's too little 110. Other than the 110 the other stuff is fairly uniformly irritating. Sometimes it's rap . . . .other times it's way overmodulated electronic keyboard stuff. Let me add, there was one Ohio-centric rap piece put together by a BA guy a few years ago that was cool and that I wouldn't mind being play a time or two per game, but other than that let's make it all 110 when it comes game-time music.

Edit: Now that I think about it the aforementioned Ohio-centric rap song would need to be updated because it referenced some then current players.

As someone who sits close enough to the band to get bumped by a bass drum frequently, I can say with confidence the 110 plays almost non-stop during stoppage of play. There is very little piped music through the speakers.

I have to add...no comments about their simple but effective center court scoreboard? :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjgt2rVIhKU

now we got people that are jealous of BG's Stroh Center? lmao.