It's almost that time. The squeak of shoes on the hardwood, the sounds of a blaring pep band, the catcalls of "AIIIIRRRBBAAALLLLL" after a missed shot, and the yells of drunken college students screaming at opposing players, all point to one thing: College basketball is back.
Now I love college basketball, and there is no greater feeling then walking into a gym on a cold winter night, seeing AU finally come together for something. But I feel like there is more that we can do to make this place more frightening to opposing teams than it has been in the past. So here are my suggestions for making Bender Arena better for basketball.
Everyone go: Now I'm not talking about most people on campus, because I know that, in my time here, more and more people have gone to the games. I'm talking about an entirely different crowd.
I know somewhere in Hughes there's a guy wearing a "Deep Space Nine" T-shirt who only leaves his room to buy Red Bull so he can stay up all night playing "Halo." I also know there's a girl in Leonard who's trying to save the whales, the dolphins, the tigers and the world all at the same time and has never been to a basketball game in her life because she knows that somehow, in some way, an animal was hurt.
These are the people that we need to go to the games. These are the unrepresented aspects of this campus that have never been to a sporting event. If we can get these people to go, then we can get anyone to go.
Don't jinx the team: Last year, during a close game we seemingly had in hand, people took their keys out of their pockets and starting shaking them, giving the old "warm up the bus" chant. Not a good decision.
I thought that it was common knowledge that you can't do that unless there are 12 seconds left and we're up by 140 points, because, especially last year, no lead was safe at home. So for all those new fans who've crawled out of wherever they came from, they need to simply ask someone who looks like they know what's going on and ask, "Is it ok to chant now?'
New trend: At a lot of the big time schools, they have time-honored rituals that go on during the game. At Syracuse for example, no one sits down until the Orange have scored. At Duke, the Cameron Crazies jump up and down every time things are going their way.
We need something like that at AU. But we need something different - something that sets us a part from everyone else. Maybe we could all do head stands for the first half, and counter that with cartwheels for the second half. I think there's a need to set us apart so that when prospective recruits come here, they'll either think we're crazy, or the most dedicated fans in America.
So there are some of my suggestions for the upcoming season. I hope in years to come we become a place that teams fear coming to, not a half empty gym with a few "Screaming Eagles" yelling. If headstands don't do that, I don't know what will.
