Come on. The game had several things working against attendance's favor. Weeknight, no students, 9pm, more than an hour from any population center.

A Saturday game with students on campus would have had at least 9K, bare minimum.

In 2001, Wisconsin played here and students were out of session and it was 9k. We had 10 or 11k once for West Virginia over winter break when they used to have balls and play us. I know those were generally Saturdays, but still without students.

What you also have to remember is that any hype from those early 2010s teams is gone and basketball has done nothing of note in November, December, January or February in a long time. Maybe beating Ga Tech four years ago. Not looking to start a pissing contest about who is responsible, just facts. Has anything happened that made the casual fan take notice? Free novelty lightsabers that are going to be tossed in the trash where they can slowly decompose over the next 500000 years can only do so much. Jeff Boals has a big challenge ahead of him and it's not just trying to mold young talent into a basketball team. I'm glad we played 4 power schools this year. Our 8-4 and maybe 9-4 isn't bad but it's hardly anything to get excited about (yet). What if we had grabbed just one of those games against big schools and were 9-3 now and looking at 10-3 pre-conf? That would make a huge difference.

Borna, I'm not saying your exchange with Coach Painter is not welcome. I'm saying I don't accept that he's right.

9pm on a weeknight is the biggest offender. Move that to 7pm and I think there would have been 6-7k actual butts in seats. We had Temple and UMass in the building recently without students and saw those crowds. I think the Convo is a completely different beast once there are at least 7k. The fact that there were great winter break crowds when P5 level schools visited us on Saturdays in the past supports my point.

And we were on national TV.

The original post was that borna ran into Matt Painter at Matt's high school jersey retirement. Matt saw him wearing OU gear and commented that he expected a much larger crowd on Tuesday.

+1

Couple hundred in the Hardwood House? Now I know who was "counting" all the fans in the Convo during the Schaus years and here McKinney and I thought it was Shaus.

They should of gave out 5 dollar tickets to the Purdue game as well. The crowd Saturday with he 5 dollar tickets was way better than I thought it would be. I mean it wasn't great, but better.

Sure if you live right in Athens County and your game was in Athens, but parents, coaches and players are all for the most part out of that equation. Sure, general fan gets to make a choice, but those involved with the HS game, not so much. So, yes, that keeps people away.

And there is a good chance that the largest crowd in the Convo again this year will be a High School game.

I am not surprised Painter expected a bigger crowd. He has experience going to other mid-major programs on the road. I doubt he really thought about the start time, students or college basketball...he just thought a Big 10 team is coming to their place which has to be exciting. It was a shame the game wasn't a better day/time. Or for that matter, it is a shame it was right at the onset of a rebuild. Regardless, it was exciting to have them there.

Borna - Don't do the Gman thing and flip out when people discuss your topic. Shab was just defending the small crowd, we need to see you around here more often.

Maybe the "Come on" part of the response? It's hard to read/infer sarcasm or inflection in ones voice etc. via text - so we're left to decipher on our own. That could very easily be read as "OH COME ON!" As in, why in the world are you bothering with this stupid argument again, followed by the usual excuses for why our attendance sucks anymore.

Or I could be completely wrong *shrugs* - just my .02.