Saturday, November 22, 2008

Attendance

Aggies players and head coach Marvin Menzies all talked about attendance figures in the first two games of the season. I'm writing a little story on it for Monday's paper, but I wanted to see what the general feeling from you is. Are you disappointed in the attendance? I wouldn't say Menzies or the players are, but they certainly notice when the crowd doesn't show up, more so because of the energy that it gives them than anything else. Even last year, I remember Justin Hawkins making a couple pleas for fans to show up on more of a regular basis. This is only my second year seeing Aggie home games but from my understanding, the atmosphere isn't what it was even prior to the Theus era.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Attendance not good IMO. However, it should be said that those that are showing up are bringing a lot of energy. The past two home games have been great fun. I hope more people hop on quickly, because I think the bandwagon is going to be full this year.

JG, I think you do a great job covering the basketball teams. keep up the good work.

J.D. said...

It's been pretty pathetic. The team is actually exciting. I don't get why more people don't go. Even last year's UNM and UTEP home games weren't up to par.

I'm just going to start yelling at everyone in Las Cruces, "This isn't football, people! We're actually good at basketball!"

Anonymous said...

The people in Las Cruces need to realize that if they want a top caliber mid-major program year in and year out like Gonzaga or Creigton, they have to show up. Not just for the UTEPs and RENOs and UNM games, but every game. These guys are very fun to watch, especially with McKines in the line up. Good crowds mean good recruits and good teams.

Anonymous said...

There needs to be some sort of huge Marketing blast around last Cruces.

Bill boards with game schedules, etc.

It needs to be up in lights next to the Pan Am so people passing by can say 'oh theres a game tonight! lets go!'

Anonymous said...

People, Las Cruces High and Mayfield High both played football games during the Pepperdine game. The people will come because this team is good, hard workers, and they are a team!
Go Aggies!

Anonymous said...

I remember when Reggie was here I saw a lot of TV ads for the basketball games but since then I have not seen anything. Maybe more advertising will help out.

Anonymous said...

Seems like the University didnt do enough to promote the basketball teams. I must have got 5 emails to renew my football tickets, but I dont recall anything for my hoops tickets.

Anonymous said...

I think the exhibition games and the season opener were kinda disappointing attendance-wise. But The Pepperdine game attendance was good, in light of the fact that there were two competing football games at the same time. I think the USC close loss helped convince alot of bandwagon fans that this will be a good team this year. The movie star appeal of Theus got alot of fans to the game, but alot of us will attend the games because of the team itself. I am glad they look real good this year so far. Hopefully this road trip they will have a decent showing to keep the interest up when they get back to the Pan Am.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps the effervescent Steve Macy and his Marketing crew put 90% of their efforts into football and 9% into men's basketball and 1% into women's bball. Maybe they should regroup and rethink. Also, could you seriously think tons are fans are gonna come to see us warm up against New Mexico Highlands? Also, there might've been a heckuva-lot more students at the Pepperdine game had the game not been on the Friday on Thanksgiving break, when they all went home. Also, as a previous post-er had stated, we were competing against the Mayfield and Las Cruces football games for the Las Cruces regular-fans ...
I don't think we should be concerned about attendance at this stage.
On the men's basketball team. I am very impressed. I was grilled when I said this a few weeks back, but Chris Gabriel is SOFT. We have a great team from the looks of it, but we lack a good center. Don't even get me started on Rahman. If he could only successfully receive a pass, I'd be impressed.
If Troy Gillenwater can keep up his great play, he'll definitely be in line for WAC newcomer of the yaer. He's great and his play versus Pepperdine (6 blocks) brought back memories of former Aggie James Moore. His timing to block shots is exactly the same.
Gibson and Young are very good.
Additionally, I am very impressed with the ball-handling of Laroche. How was he not on a DI team already?
Finally, it was nice to see Menzies give his players some heat during the game. Nice to see some fire out of him finally...

Things are looking good right now.
I don't think we need to worry about attendance at this point.

Go Aggies

Anonymous said...

Every big program in the country starts with a packed student section. During the holiday break games at NMSU, the student sections have been empty, but come on you guys - you get in for the price of walking up the hill to Pan Am. Waded Cruzado or somebody must engender more school spirit. At least Martin was a big hoops fan and attended all the games.

Ross said...

Early season attendance is never all that great, not even under Reggie. I can remember sitting in a half full Pan Am many times early on when we had a good team, even last year, coming right off of a WAC title and NCAA tourney appearance.

Las Cruces, like any other city, has its share of fair weather fans. The hardcore Aggie fans will be there all the time, and those loud students that are awesome, everybody else will come to UNM, UTEP, and if the team is good, the WAC games, that's how it goes.