If there is one season to jump on the Northwestern men’s basketball bandwagon, this is it.
NU students are constantly criticized season after season for low attendance at athletic events, but this basketball season is truly on the cusp of making history. As the only major conference school that has never made the NCAA Tournament, this may be the year when NU (9-3, 0-2 Big Ten) finally lifts what The Wall Street Journal calls the “last great collegiate curse.”
And students seem to be catching the Wildcat fever. In one of the biggest Big Ten home openers in NU history, students showed up in such throngs at the home game against Michigan State that some were even turned away at the door, according to an NU athletics official.
But the team needs continued NU student support once the quarter gets into full swing. NU basketball games (and other sporting events) are notorious for their empty stands, and although the Michigan State game may be a bellwether for the rest of the season, the onslaught of midterms and wintry winter will be enough to keep most students at home.
Even if students didn’t have the habit of attending athletic events in high school or know nothing about basketball, now is the time to start caring. The team’s success has caught national attention, and CBS will even be broadcasting the home game against the University of Illinois on Feb. 5 for the first time ever.
NU has always struggled to balance its reputation as an academically elite institution and its position as a Big Ten school, and high academic standards have often hurt NU in the recruiting process. The school has already done just about everything to facilitate student attendance at basketball games. Shuttles to the Welsh-Ryan Arena now run very frequently, and NU is the only Big Ten school to subsidize student tickets at athletic events. Although NU may never be on par with schools like Duke where students camp out for tickets, students can still try much harder to support our basketball team.
Making NU a place of both academic and athletic pride gives our school more character than most other top schools can claim. That’s a task that falls not only on athletes, but on students as well.
