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Dickson: Sellout crowd makes big difference to Cougars |
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JaredLloyd | Saturday, January 27, 2007, 10:54 pm
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Darnell Dickson
DAILY HERALD
With about four minutes left in Saturday’s BYU-Air Force basketball game, the Cougars needed a defensive stop. So the sellout crowd of 22,700 stood in unison and began screaming its lungs out.
The noise was deafening, the shot clock was winding down, there was a collision ... and BYU’s Keena Young was called for a blocking foul.
Those screams turned into boos like somebody just changed the channel. Hey, there’s only so much 22,700 can do, and one of those things isn’t improving the eyesight or judgment of a referee.
BYU ran its home winning streak to 27 games with a 61-52 victory over 13th-ranked Air Force, indulging the largest Marriott Center crowd in three seasons and sending it home feeling satisfied it had done its part in influencing the outcome of the game.
During one comical scene, Trent Plaisted wasn’t sure whether he could pick up the ball in backcourt and 22,700 fans yelled “Get it!” in unison.
He did.
BYU did everything but give away free tickets with a purchase of an oil change to fill up the MC on Saturday, selling $1 bench seats during the week; officals had to turn away fans at the ticket window 20 minutes before the game started. The game was billed as a “white out” and fans responded by wearing white.
Plaisted said it was so loud at times he couldn’t even hear himself scream, and that it was “an amazing feeling” to play in front of sellout home crowd.
So how much do the home fans have to do with the 27 wins in a row in the MC? While Saturday’s game was a sellout, most of the games in BYU’s streak have come before a half-empty house. The Cougars have averaged only 10,836 fans during the winning streak, and only twice in those 27 wins has there been more than 20,000 in the stands.
Teams will win more at home regardless of how many butts are in the seats. It’s the place where they practice, so they’re comfortable with their surroundings. They get to sleep in their own beds the night before the game, get to eat their regular food and use the same locker room.
But fill up the place and the atmosphere becomes something special.
Old timers will tell you of the good old days when they sold out the Marriott Center every home game, where a ticket was impossible to find on game day and BYU was always among the nation’s leaders in attendance.
Truth be told, fans haven’t filled the Marriott Center consistently for a long time, maybe since Danny Ainge, Devin Durrant and Michael Smith were marquee players. Any BYU fan can tell you about the glory years, but the flat fact is the Cougars haven’t been deeper than the second round in the NCAA tournament since 1981.
The elite years are long gone, only to be found on re-runs on BYU-TV on Friday nights.
BYU head coach Dave Rose is trying to establish his program, but who knows if BYU will ever come close to the glory years? Steve Cleveland got the Cougars to the NCAA tournament three times but couldn’t get past the first round. Rose, who played in an NCAA championship game as a player for Houston in the early 80s, would like nothing better then to get his Cougars to the Final Four. The last home loss for BYU was Rose’s first official game as head coach — an 83-71 loss to Loyola Marymount on Nov. 18, 2005.
For the fans to fill the Marriott Center consistently, the Cougars simply have to keep winning and make a run in the NCAA tournament.
“If you build it, they will come?”
Nah. Having a 23,000-seat venue isn’t enough. You’ve got to win, and then they will come.
True Blue fans may scoff at their bandwagon counterparts, but that’s how you fill the arena.
∫ Daily Herald Sports Editor Darnell Dickson can be reached at 344-2555 or by e-mail at
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