Letter from Napoleon to the students

[BigTime]

An OSU buddy of mine received this via email from "Travis Ford" (aka the marketing department):

Dear OSU Student,

Welcome back. I hope you had a great Holiday season and good start to the New Year. Basketball season is in full swing and Big 12 Conference play starts Saturday night vs. #22 Texas Tech. OSU Students are the reason Gallagher-Iba Arena was selected as the "Rowdiest Arena in the Country". I need your help to "Bring the Rowdy Back" to Gallagher Iba Arena. I am asking you to please make every effort possible to attend Saturday night's game in Gallagher Iba Arena and as many home games as possible during Big 12 Conference Play. This year's young Cowboy Basketball team really needs your support. The Big 12 Conference is the best it has ever been with four teams in Top 25 (including #1 & #2) and three more receiving votes. This year's conference race promises to be one of the most competitive in history of the league. I think you will agree, when Gallagher-Iba Arena is full, it's the nation's best college basketball venue and home court advantage.

If you have purchased student tickets, please be sure you have picked them up from the OSU Ticket Office. If you have friends who would like to attend games but don't have tickets, $10 tickets are being offered for all remaining home games except for Texas, OU and Kansas. Please pass this along to any other Cowboy Basketball student season ticket holders or anyone else who may want to attend the games. Thank you for your support of Cowboy Basketball. I look forward to seeing (and hearing) you at Gallagher-Iba Arena during Big 12 Conference play in 2010. Go Pokes!

Sincerely,

Travis Ford

Travis Ford
Head Men's Basketball Coach

I realize that they are just trying to do the things that many teams (including OU) have either done in the past or are continuing to do, but you gotta admit, it is pretty funny and ironic to see this kind of stuff going on with that program.

I vividly remember getting roasted by many an aggie for the "gimmicks" used to get folks to basketball games. Funny how quickly things can change....

"Bring the rowdy back" lol

To me, there are only two schools in the Big 12 that have consistently supported their basketball program: 1. Kansas 2. Iowa State

Kansas is at another level from the cyclones, but I have always found ISU fans to be the best in the league for all sports (particularily due to the fact they often aren't any good).

The good news for us diehard OU basketball fans is that we won't have to hear little brother giving us crap about our basketball attendance. They have had worse butts in the seats attendance for the past three years (including this year). I hope we can keep it that way.

 

[Seymore Cox]

Hunziker made a radio plea to fill the stadium and restore osu to being the number one stadium in the Nation!!!!!!!

 

[MVPx2]

Sadly, the Suttons both brought to life and killed OSU basketball. Sean's tenure and off-court issues really turned a lot of people off. The current crop of OSU students don't know what it is like to have a good team/rowdy arena because they have never experienced it. It is going to take some creative marketing by the athletic department and some wins over better teams to get the students back to the games.

Also, the continued increase in ticket prices is also killing attendance (non-students). With the financial situation in this country, a lot of people are being forced to choose between football and basketball season tickets. Since the Sutton debacle soiled the program and the consecutive years of NIT appearances, many families are choosing football.

Don't know that we'll ever see GIA like it was in the mid 2000's.

 

[Seymore Cox]

Sadly, the Suttons both brought to life and killed OSU basketball. Sean's tenure and off-court issues really turned a lot of people off. The current crop of OSU students don't know what it is like to have a good team/rowdy arena because they have never experienced it. It is going to take some creative marketing by the athletic department and some wins over better teams to get the students back to the games.

Also, the continued increase in ticket prices is also killing attendance (non-students). With the financial situation in this country, a lot of people are being forced to choose between football and basketball season tickets. Since the Sutton debacle soiled the program and the consecutive years of NIT appearances, many families are choosing football.

Don't know that we'll ever see GIA like it was in the mid 2000's.

You can't blame this on th Sutton's. They aren't the only coaches to have problems. You might want to blame TBoone for outpricing the fans. I think Kelvin's departure put some life in OU's program. I think Capel is much stronger with the students. What kills a program is the on floor product. Missing the NCAA tourney for 3 years probably took it's toll. But maybe the biggest thing was said by Lance Bedford who claimed that fans are "roaches" when things start going bad. I'm sure their were some "OU roaches" this football season and probably some basketball roaches will come too. However, you have to have a strong non-student prescence to make a program run and OSU doesn't have one right now.

 

[MVPx2]

You can't blame this on th Sutton's. They aren't the only coaches to have problems. You might want to blame TBoone for outpricing the fans. I think Kelvin's departure put some life in OU's program. I think Capel is much stronger with the students. What kills a program is the on floor product. Missing the NCAA tourney for 3 years probably took it's toll. But maybe the biggest thing was said by Lance Bedford who claimed that fans are "roaches" when things start going bad. I'm sure their were some "OU roaches" this football season and probably some basketball roaches will come too. However, you have to have a strong non-student prescence to make a program run and OSU doesn't have one right now.

The Sutton's do shoulder much of the blame for the current state of OSU basketball. You say the on floor product and missing the NCAA tournament 3 years in a row can kill a program. Well, the Suttons were directly responsible for that on-court product and missing the NCAA tournament. The current apathetic attitude seen by the students can be directly related to this. Most of the current OSU students probably know nothing or very little at all about the Final Four team of 2004 or the Sweet Sixteen team of 2005. They have yet to experience GIA on a Saturday afternoon or Big Monday when there are 13,000+ fans making it one of the best arenas in the country. Had the Suttons not tanked the OSU program into a hole, the fan support would still be there.

And yes, there are some very fickle OSU non-student fans out there. When the Sutton's were forced out, a lot of fan support went with them. Many, many longtime ticket holders felt Sean was fired unjustly, even though they knew of his problems. For some reason, they vehemently denied the well known about town fact that the apple didn't fall far from the tree, and that assistant coaches were constantly called upon to run practices due to Sean's inability to show up on time or at all. These people claimed to be loyal and true to OSU, when in fact, they were just loyal and true to the Sutton's. Travis Ford is still trying to fight to win these fans' support, but he is fighting an uphill battle.

A really crappy OOC schedule can be blamed too, but we won't know how much until Saturday. I would be extremely surprised if there are 9000 people in the arena come gametime.

 

[Seymore Cox]

The Sutton's do shoulder much of the blame for the current state of OSU basketball. You say the on floor product and missing the NCAA tournament 3 years in a row can kill a program. Well, the Suttons were directly responsible for that on-court product and missing the NCAA tournament. The current apathetic attitude seen by the students can be directly related to this. Most of the current OSU students probably know nothing or very little at all about the Final Four team of 2004 or the Sweet Sixteen team of 2005. They have yet to experience GIA on a Saturday afternoon or Big Monday when there are 13,000+ fans making it one of the best arenas in the country. Had the Suttons not tanked the OSU program into a hole, the fan support would still be there.

And yes, there are some very fickle OSU non-student fans out there. When the Sutton's were forced out, a lot of fan support went with them. Many, many longtime ticket holders felt Sean was fired unjustly, even though they knew of his problems. For some reason, they vehemently denied the well known about town fact that the apple didn't fall far from the tree, and that assistant coaches were constantly called upon to run practices due to Sean's inability to show up on time or at all. These people claimed to be loyal and true to OSU, when in fact, they were just loyal and true to the Sutton's. Travis Ford is still trying to fight to win these fans' support, but he is fighting an uphill battle.

A really crappy OOC schedule can be blamed too, but we won't know how much until Saturday. I would be extremely surprised if there are 9000 people in the arena come gametime.

My early life was filled with OSU missing NCAA tournaments and being a very poor team. The Sutton's obviously turned that around and three year of bubble basketball isn't enough for fans to turn their back on 15 years of pretty good basketball.

 

[ByronHoustonsSweatyPalms]

Maybe we should just quit charging students like other schools.

 

[topcat]

A lot of things have contributed to osu's bad attendance. When the donation is $1500 per seat + a $560 ticket to sit lower level baseline to baseline, it gets pretty high. The fans quit coming when Sean started losing and putting a crappy product on the floor.

Hollis Price gave a talk at my son's school when Hollis was a senior. I asked him what was the toughest venue to play in and who was the best player he had faced. GIA was the toughest arena and Kenyon Martin was the best college player.