Open letter to LSU Basketball student faithful

I've attended many games the last few seasons and while you guys and girls in the "Maravich Maniacs" section can get loud on occasion, the place really rocks when you are at full throat. I was a the Kentucky game today and it was really sad that their fans made more of a presence known than ours. I'm not blaming you students but if you get a good vibe going the rest of the place follows. It is up to you to be the leader and make the PMAC the Deaf Dome again no matter what our team is doing on the floor. The team feeds off the crowd and it will make a difference if the student section can stay into it. I will say that things are much better the last two seasons than in the past few but lets push it to another level.:bball:

 

I don't know of too many fan bases that are going to get pumped for a team that is still 0-for-the-SEC halfway through conference play, can't put up 20 points in a half and gets blown out by 26 at home. I understand what you're saying and it's commendable, but it's a very tall order. We know the issues with injuries and recruiting, and the players are absolutely busting their butts and working as hard as they can. But the hard fact is that this year's team is one of the worst LSU has fielded in quite some time, and there's little hope things are going to get turned around, so I can forgive fans for sitting this season out. I'd also like to see more people coming out and supporting these kids who are playing their hearts out, but it's very tough to get good fan turnout under the circumstances. Honestly, LSU should focus more on getting paying customers in seats than worrying about student attendance IMO, because the Maniacs and hardcore fans will always be front and center, and that's gonna be hard to do when you're knocking on a double-digit losing streak. The good news is those are problems that can be fixed with winning and consistent success, but the fact is LSU is in major, major rebuilding mode.

 

As it turns out, I was at the game with my cousin, who happens to have married a Kentucky guy. I'm told that they absolutely love travelling to watch their team, for the simple reason that it's easier to drive 12 hours to BR than to wait through the 15 year waiting list for tickets in their home court.

Not that the aforementioned 0 and SEC isn't affecting things, because I'm sure it is, but it strikes me as unfair to pretend that most of the state doesn't have Saints in Super Bowl fever on this particular weekend. LSU basketball is going to be second place at best on most local minds.

 

it's a funny thing, college hoops. it's either a big thing for your school, or not. LSU has always been a football school, then a baseball school, but never really a basketball school. they have had GREAT teams in the past, but LSU isn't a basketball school. i don't mean that in a disrespectful manner, but we aren't kentucky and never will be -- ever. that's OK because kentucky will never be LSU in football either. you can be good at everything, but it's hard to be great at everything. i just don't think that baton rouge (or louisiana in general) is really a big supporter of basketball. not like other places. but i think that i would probably say the same thing about baseball had it not been for a man named skip bertman, if you know what i mean. if LSU can give coach trent an honest chance (and vice versa,) i think that we can be very, very good. but what does CTJ see in a job like LSU? he arguably could have had MUCH, MUCH better success on the west coast and stanford, but he chose to come to LSU. i don't think money is that important to a guy like CTJ.

 

Well, it wasn't always football, then baseball. For a long time it was football and then basketball. I totally agree with the Skip Bertman statement. Trust me, if LSU had a coach that brought that kind of success to the basketball program, you'd see a sick atmosphere.

Dale Brown had a good program with pretty good success. He was an exciting guy that brought in exciting players and even though LSU wasn't consistently going deep into the NCAA tourney, they were consistently good and the PMAC was an awesome place to see a game for a while. I remember Dick Vitale listing it in his top 10 places to see a college basketball game back during Dale's run. For a while, LSU was one of those top 25 places that was talked about quite a bit. And like I said in another thread, LSU still has three of the top 10 highest attended games in NCAA history and two of the top three.

It's just hard to get LSU fans into it as much when something like football is such a big event with so much emotion tied in. But when LSU wins at a good rate, the fans do show and it becomes a lot of fun. It is very hard to be good at everything. But I don't see any reason why we can't build a good program that is consistently fun and exciting again. It just takes some work.

 

point was that LSU basketball never won a national title, we have titles in both baseball and football. and i agree, it doesn't matter if it's basket-weaving, if LSU is good at it, then it will be relevant and important to the fanbase. :yelwink2:

 

I went to every home game in the Ag Center during Pete Maravich's college career, including the freshman team games he played in. Most of the time the team was pretty bad but the show that the Pistol put on made it entertaining.

I went to tons of games during Dale Brown's coaching tenure. Dale had good teams, bad teams and even great teams but no matter what the games were always entertaining. I think Trent Johnson is probably a good coach. If he had brought in a few junior college transfers this season LSU would have a better record. I wish he had done it instead of sacrificing a whole season until he gets his first real recruiting class in for next season.

I stopped watching the game today when Kentucky had a 34-12 lead in the first half. Right now LSU basketball is not entertaining and not worth spending the price of a ticket to watch. Call me a bandwagon fan if you want but I am not going to spend my money and my time to go to games where I won;t be entertained whether they win or lose.

If an LSU football coach had won the SEC title in his first year and then lost 9 straight SEC games I would be among the loudest in calling for him to be fired. But since its not football I will support CTJ for now and hope that he builds a team that can compete for the SEC title and get to the NCAA playoffs in the next couple of seasons.

 

What I am saying is it isn't hard to get pumped for a game in the beginning. We were actually doing quite well the first 5 minutes or so when we had an 8-1 lead. A nice crowd noise may have kept that momentum going. Plus, after the UK introductions (that received a very vocal reception from their fans), you could have heard a pin drop for the beginning of intros for the Tigers. No reason NOT to expect some noise for these guys on their home floor.

If anyone doubts the atmosphere in the PMAC go to LSUSports.net and watch the LSU/Loyola-Marymount replay...simply electric atmosphere. Even last season with the success we had it was mediocre crowd support at best. My whole point is the students can bring the noise and the rest of the place follows.

 

With ESPN 360, I am able to watch numerous basketball games across the country and I enjoy watching each of them for at least a few minutes to see what their home atmosphere is like, etc. And, from the perspective of someone who watched the whole Kentucky @ LSU game on ESPN... our student section and our fans did an A-plus job and I am extremely proud of them (including Les Miles, who went to the game and stayed the whole time). The whole game I kept thinking "I can't believe how awesome our fans are." The main camera angle ESPN showed the game from was from the side of the court where you were reading the "LSU" across the middle of the court, and right behind that was this huge student section packed with LSU students wearing gold shirts (which is something you don't see from most home NCAA basketball teams). They were jumping up and down the whole game (which is also something you don't see from most home NCAA basketball teams). Think how tiring that is to jump up and down the whole game like that. Also, the student section was cheering and chanting the whole game, which was amazing being how badly our team got humiliated on the basketball court. At points in the second half, our student section and fans got so loud that I was thinking that even the Kentucky team had to be impressed with how great our fans are.

However, watching the game on TV isn't the same as being there... and maybe had I been there I would have been disappointed in our fans as well. But watching them on TV, our fans looked awesome.

Some other things to consider: our team is horrible this year, one of the worst teams in LSU history in any sport. You'd think people would have better things to do with their time than to go to the P-Mac to watch our team lose over and over... especially when playing the Dream Team that Kentucky has this season, and especially LSU students who have an exciting social life as college students (not to mention having to study and do their homework). It's a miracle people are going to the games in the first place, especially this weekend. This is the 2nd-biggest weekend of Mardi Gras. They have like 30 parades going on in New Orleans this weekend--it's a popular destination that those students in the student section could have gone to instead of the P-Mac to watch LSU get stomped again. Also, this is Super Bowl weekend and the Saints are in the Super Bowl... those LSU students in the P-Mac could have gone to New Orleans, Miami, or to their hometowns to watch the Super Bowl with their hometown family and friends instead of watching LSU get beat down again.

 

I guess maybe I seem to be harsh but really I would just like to see a little more fire. It was the largest crowd of the season and I think it was in part that we were playing Kentucky and also retiring Rudy Macklins jersey. My son and I were commenting on a game I took him to when he was about 5 (he is 15 now). It was against Kentucky, packed to the rafters and the place was rocking. He didn't remember anything about the game or who we played...just that it was so loud his ears hurt afterward even though it was a loss. THAT is the crowd I'm looking for...