MVC games Sunday-- ISU wins

[Da Coach]

Illlinois State beat Division II University of Missouri-St. Louis, 70-37 at Redbird Arena.
Attendance listed at 4,185, but that must have counted tickets sold as there were far fewer in the stands.

http://goredbirds.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/recaps/111107aaa.html

Box score--

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/boxscore?gid=200711110269

Evansville lost to Samford in Evansville, 50-49. Not a good way for the Marty Simmons era to begin. The crowd was 5,170. Evansville had a total of 3 assists as a team, and nobody had more than 1.--

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/boxscore?gid=200711110193

Northern Iowa is the other MVC school in action today. They are hosting University of Massachusetts in a game that started at 5:05 pm. UNI leads at the half 32-22.--

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/boxscore?gid=200711110418

Not MVC, but Illinois beat Northeastern 63-55 in a game that was closer than expected, considering Northeastern shot only 29%.--

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/boxscore?gid=200711110267

[Da Coach]

Indiana State guard Cole Holmstrom was injured in Friday night's game against Oakland City.
Xrays were negative. He is uncertain for their game Wednesday against Butler.--

http://blogs.tribstar.com/downinthevalley/?p=6

One other injury-- SIU sophomore shooting guard Josh Bone suffered a shoulder separation in practice Friday and will probably miss about 2 weeks.

[jasonpeoria911]

17 steals for ISU holy moly. Hope we work on our TO troubles before visiting ISU lol. Northern IA is looking tough, they havn't been challenged in 3 games on consecutive days. Should make for another interesting valley season unless Les doesn't turn our team around.

Jason

[Da Coach]

Southern Illinois played an exhibition game today against Lincoln Memorial University, a Division II school in Tennessee.
SIU won 97-51. Attendance 4,574--

http://siusalukis.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/recaps/111107aaa.html

Box score--

http://siusalukis.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/stats/2007-2008/siumex2.html

[DannyCooksey]

Illlinois State beat Division II University of Missouri-St. Louis, 70-37 at Redbird Arena.
Attendance listed at 4,185, but that must have counted tickets sold as there were far fewer in the stands.

http://goredbirds.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/recaps/111107aaa.html

Box score--

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/boxscore?gid=200711110269

Evansville lost to Samford in Evansville, 50-49. Not a good way for the Marty Simmons era to begin. The crowd was 5,170. Evansville had a total of 3 assists as a team, and nobody had more than 1.--

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/boxscore?gid=200711110193

Northern Iowa is the other MVC school in action today. They are hosting University of Massachusetts in a game that started at 5:05 pm. UNI leads at the half 32-22.--

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/boxscore?gid=200711110418

Not MVC, but Illinois beat Northeastern 63-55 in a game that was closer than expected, considering Northeastern shot only 29%.--
http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/boxscore?gid=200711110267

Just curious....were you at the game? Because I know the game wasn't televised. How do you know the attendance figure is inaccurate?

[tornado]

The radio broadcasters pointedly stated so...


BTW....ex-Brave Michael Rembert has not played yet for SEMO, he has been injured:
"6-9 senior Michael Rembert remains sidelined while coming from back two off-season knee surgeries."

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071110/SPT0102/711100418/1065/SPT

and for those interested, Michael Beasley of K-State went for 30/14 today, and they needed them all as K-State played poorly as a team
and barely avoinded being upset by D-II Pittsburg State. K-State scored 26 of the game's final 35 points, to erase a 7 point deficit late in the 2nd half.

[Phantom]

The radio broadcasters pointed stated so...

Was it WJBC you were listening to? If so that is surprising and I dont know why they would say that. We had about 3700 for the exhibition game and there was CLEARLY more people in the crowd today. Not a lot more obviously, but 4,185 was very accurate IMHO. Not that that number is anything to be proud of of course, but there certainly was not less than that in the stands. 4,185 is an accurate figure.

[MacabreMob]

As an avid fan of college hoops, I am glad the season has started earlier... but at the same time.... the sloppy play and poor shooting by many, many teams has me reconsidering....

[Chico]

What's the big deal? That's about a normal ISU crowd, except when they play Bradley.

[bert notorius]

...normal ISU crowd...

Good one.

[Da Coach]

Just curious....were you at the game? Because I know the game wasn't televised. How do you know the attendance figure is inaccurate?

No I wasn't there. I got the information from a group who did attend and took video that showed the mostly empty stands, so I believe my statement to be accurate.

Here is some video from WMBD. You be the judge. Looks pretty empty to me.

http://centralillinoisproud.com/media_player.php?media_id=5646

[tornado]

there certainly was not less than that in the stands. 4,185 is an accurate figure.

I really can't say, but apparently there were a lot of empty seats right where the season ticketholders sit, giving the appearance of sold seats but a lot of no-shows.

Answer this.....below are pictrues from the game, all of which demonstrate a whole lot of the choicest, premium seats, right behind the bench went empty at this game.
I am puzzled as you'd think those are the people who are the most dedicated fans and who have easily paid the most for their seats and even if they weren't going to go, they'd have no trouble giving those seats away.
So why are so many empty?

More than half the seats in the first 3 rows right behind the bench are empty






This one is from the Quincy game, kinda looks like more people there than yesterday

[MacabreMob]

ISU must have a lot of fans who root for UIUC as well.... so the UIUC fans went to U/C for a game than staying in town to watch the Birds.

[houstontxbrave]

The bottom line to me is not the attendance, but why would ISU even consider playing UMSL in its home opener? Play someone in D1 and maybe someone other then red seats will show up for the game. ISU is in D1 and plays in one of the nicest areans in Illinois, act like a high caliber program and get the UMSL's off of the regular season schedule.

[Phantom]

The bottom line to me is not the attendance, but why would ISU even consider playing UMSL in its home opener? Play someone in D1 and maybe someone other then red seats will show up for the game. ISU is in D1 and plays in one of the nicest areans in Illinois, act like a high caliber program and get the UMSL's off of the regular season schedule.

Believe me, none of us liked the DII game either. The only possible explanation was that it couldve been Moser's doing. Some of the schedule was already in place before he got fired, and he always scheduled 1 DII team as part of the regular season. This couldve been the case here. Or perhaps some sort of deal was struck with UMSL to play them in the reg. season this year after playing them in our exhibition last year? Not sure, just a guess.

As for Tornado's question, I think many of those seats in the first 2 rows directly behind the bench are either for players' families/guests, and/or recruits. I also agree that you would think the prime seats like that would normally be filled up, if for no other reason than how expensive they are, but thats unfortunately not the case in B/N anymore. ISU fans are the most fair-weather in the world and look for any/all excuses to miss games these days. Plus, and I know this may sound like nitpicking, but there are several other factors as to the crappy attendance from yesterday:

1. Sunday afternoon games never draw worth a **************** here. People are lazy on Sundays and watching football, or going to church, or having family stuff going on, etc. (not to mention it was Veterans Day so there couldve been some functions there too.)
2. Many students tend to go home on weekends and/or are too lazy & hungover for a 1pm Sunday game, hence why the student section was only half full.
3. This was basically a 2nd exhibition game for us and so people werent overly excited for this one.
4. Out of town fans likely didnt want to bother with the drive to see us play a DII team.
5. U of I was playing too, and I'm sure at least SOME people opted out of coming to RA to watch the Illini instead. Sad but true.

Those are all some likely reasons why the crowd sucked. I'm not making excuses either. Any ISU fan will tell you that these are logical arguments for the bad turnout. Hopefully we can string some wins together here and attendance will start to pick up.