University President Henry Bienen doesn’t get courtside seats to Northwestern basketball games. He doesn’t paint his face purple or hurl obscenities at the referees. But he sings along with the national anthem, knows all the players’ statistics and analyzes fouls and turnovers with the authority of a sportscaster.

As one of the men’s basketball team’s biggest fans, Bienen can’t remember the last time he missed a home game and even schedules his travel plans around them.

At the Feb. 5 Purdue game, Bienen engaged in some mild heckling aimed at Purdue and NU players alike.

“Oh! How do you miss that?” and “Throw him an elbow!” he yelled.

The khaki-clad Bienen sat at the top of the first tier of seats. He stood to applaud when guard T.J. Parker made a 3-point shot, and later he praised center Vince Scott.

“Scott is clearly getting better,” Bienen said. “He’s passing better, shooting better.”

But Bienen also criticized the Wildcats’ play.

“We don’t contest offensive rebounds,” he said. “It’s against our religion.”

Leigh Buchanan Bienen, Bienen’s wife and a senior law lecturer, sat next to him during the game. She said she often attends games but isn’t as passionate about basketball as her husband.

“Oh, I don’t think anyone could be as big a fan as he is,” she said.

Bienen is not only a longtime basketball fan, he also has a longtime friendship with head coach Bill Carmody.

While a dean at Princeton University, Bienen played noon pickup basketball games with Carmody, then an assistant basketball coach.

“It was a very rough game, very dirty game,” Bienen recalled in a January interview with The Daily. “I would come home so battered because these 6-foot-8-inch guys would be putting an elbow in your ear. And finally my wife said, ‘Stick to squash. You’re too old for this, and you’re too small. And you never were that good at it anyway.'”

When Carmody came to NU in 2000, the Chicago Tribune ran an article about the lunchtime games between him and Bienen.

“Carmody said to me, ‘What do you mean we played basketball? You stayed still, and I dribbled around you,'” Bienen said.

Carmody was more modest in a Jan. 28 interview. “I was just younger,” he said. “(Bienen) knew how to play, though.”

Despite their friendship, Bienen questioned some of Carmody’s decisions, especially as Purdue started to catch up to NU in the second half.

With 3:26 left, Bienen listed every NU player who had missed a shot so far and how many baskets they’d missed.

“I think we made a mistake when we stopped pressing these guys,” he said. “Then we turned it over twice.”

Carmody said Bienen’s knowledge of basketball can be somewhat intimidating.

“I wish he didn’t know quite as much as he does about the game,” he said Jan. 28. “He knows what I’m doing wrong out here.”

After the game, Bienen praised the team’s quickness and discipline, as well as forward Vedran Vukusic’s shooting skills. But he said, “Rebounding is their weakness, clearly.”

He said he sometimes discusses basketball strategy with Carmody.

“We talk on the phone,” Bienen said. “I wouldn’t say advice. I give commentary. He pays no attention.”

Reach Tina Peng at [email protected].