NM State Aggies vs UMKC Roos Men’s Basketball 1-21-17

This was ironic.  After my boss, Ron, told me my job was being outsourced, he was fired.  I’ve been assured that I’ll be “repurposed” after the changeover.  One of my co-workers and my dad found this phrasing endlessly amusing.  Our place of business was handing out tickets to this game and Ron was still willing to go.  Unfortunately, he begged off to go to his brother’s birthday party at the last minute.  Though it was likely about freezing with the wind chill outside, I decided to go by myself anyway.  I had some thoughts of trying to give away my two extra tickets (one each for Ron and his brother) outside the arena, but it was too damn cold to even think about loitering around.

   

I needed to go to wear my new shirt anyway.  It’s from Aggie sponsor, Sports Accessories.  I picked up a hot dog, chips, and drink at the concessions.  I later saw a girl with a hamburger and realized I’d made a mistake not checking out the other concession area, which isn’t open for Women’s basketball or volleyball.  I ended up going back anyway after smelling the overpowering scent of hot roasted cinnamon almonds, my favorite thing from going to Aggie football games.  These aren’t available during girls’ games either.    

Ushers stood in the aisles, letting you know that this was a big event.  My seat was behind the north goal, where the students usually sit.  It was a different perspective on the game from where I usually sit.  My seat was also directly occluded by the time clock on top of the goal, so I couldn’t really see what was going on at the south goal.  From where I was, I could at least see nearly the entire large crowd in front of me, though.  Several of my co-workers were in the section around me.  Not surprising since our business bought 200 tickets.  I was able to say “Hi” to a few of them.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t sitting next to any of them to talk to.  The students were across the court from us in a completely packed section.  They were a boisterous bunch.  A couple of guys were even in crimson bodysuits.

Pistol Pete, the cheerleaders, and even the Sundancers were there.  I could see the voice of the Aggies, Jack Nixon.  Adam Young was  there doing the TV broadcast.  The players came out to warm up and, gosh, are these guys big.  Virtually nobody in the crowd would have any illusions about playing with these guys.  Sidy N’Dir was not playing for the Aggies due to injury.  I was disappointed.  He’s one of their better players and has such a great name.  

This was a “Pack the Pan Am” event with reduced ticket prices.  According to a newspaper report, this was done because there was a budget deficit in ticket sales.  This was blamed on “overprojected” football, volleyball, soccer, and Men’s basketball season ticket sales (and individual football ticket sales).  I guess Women’s basketball is doing okay and the spring sports (softball and baseball) aren’t counted at this point.   

The season ticket sales for Men’s basketball and football are down because of a dramatic rise in prices, that I can say almost authoritatively.  However, the basketball team is doing really well and individual ticket sales revenue is up.  Not attendance, but revenue.  By the chart above, the team was averaging 4,700 last year, down over 1,000 from the year before, though both teams were good.  This season’s attendance (as per scorecard figures), looked to be about the same.

              

Tonight’s attendance was 9,893 out of 12,500 seats.  Basically, a couple of sections in the rafters were empty.  It was an intimidating-ly large crowd.  This may bump up the overall average attendance and goose revenue significantly for the season.  If it doesn’t, cuts have been threatened, though the university can’t cut any more team sports without losing their FBS rating.  I don’t know what that means, but I assume it’s a big deal.  (An announcement about the Equestrian team, which was canceled, was teased during the radio pre-game, but not given out at this time.)  It could worse.  Fellow WAC member, Chicago State, has a freshman class this year numbering 86. 

One might ask, “Why not just lower ticket prices all the time to increase attendance?”  For football that might not hurt, but really these kind of promotional prices are done to entice local businesses to buy blocks of tickets.  A handful of them accounted for almost all the extra sales, not individual fans.  You can’t expect that kind of business support all the time.  The hope is that some of the people getting free tickets will have a good time and come back at full price.  Well, that strategy worked on me at least in regards to going to Women’s basketball games.

        

The team entrance was great at the beginning of the game.  They came down the aisle between the band and a rambunctious student section.  A pair of women sang an excellent anthem, while the team stood together with their arms around each other.  I gave up on keeping a scorecard early on since I couldn’t see the other basket well, and the crowd noise was drowning out some of the radio.  Later on, I figured out that I could have watched the scoring on the scoreboard along with video board to keep score.  Live and learn, though I don’t know if I would have actually been watching any of the game live at that point.  As long as I’m there, I should be watching the action, not the scoreboard.      

A potentially relevant pre-game stat: the Aggies haven’t lost to any current conference foe on their home court.  The Aggies took an early lead on a three after the tipoff.  An Aggie steal and dunk forced an early Roo timeout.  They seemed to be playing a bit nervous with pass thrown away and a double dribble on successive possessions.  By the second timeout, it was 15-9 Aggies.  There was a tipped Roo pass that went into the courtside seats.  The Aggie player involved immediate asked a lady there if she was okay.  T-shirts were tossed into the crowd at the next break with the Aggies up 18-9. 

Paul Weir was a very animated coach on the sidelines.  It almost seems like a job requirement.  His counterpart on the other team was the same.  The Roos got a steal, but the Aggies got two steals under their basket right after, unfortunately giving the ball back on a travelling call.  22-13 Aggies.  The Sundancers came out and threw some green things into the crowd.  I didn’t figure out what they were.  They are a really good-looking group of young women.  Both teams played a bit sloppy for a couple of minutes.  In the next timeout, one of the guys in a body suit came out to mid-court for a game of concentration, which he wins in spite of the suit. 

Jack Nixon on the radio observed that the refs seemed to be calling a loose game and letting some calls go.  I’m not complaining, and there were still plenty of fouls and stoppages in play.  35-20 Aggies with about four minutes left.  About every other time there was a whistle, more stuff got tossed into the crowd by the cheerleaders.  Jonathon Wilkins got a tremendous slam to get the otherwise somewhat quiet crowd into it.   With a minute left in the half, the radio call went out.  They started broadcasting canned music.  Having gotten used to having a personal announcer, I was completely confused by events without the radio on.  It didn’t come back on before halftime, 46-33 Aggies.  Ian Baker led with 14 points, Wilkins followed with 10 of his own.  

        

Immediately, there was an announcement about former Aggie player, Shawn Harrington, and a news report video played about his shooting.  Shawn rolled out to mid-court in a wheelchair to a standing ovation.  Even more interesting, the entire crowd was still at their seats during the ceremony.  My place of employment presented him a check towards his recovery and was handling donations.  The Sundancers and cheerleaders were sent into the crowd for donations.  I put in a contribution on my way to the bathroom.  Yikes, the Sundancers are even better-looking up close.  Good thinking sending them up for donations.

I stayed up-wind of the cinnamon nuts this time and resisted looking for the hamburgers, since I was already full.  Back at my seat, I saw a couple of fans wearing, I swear to God, Fresno Tacos hats.  This is the alternate identity of the Triple-A Fresno Grizzlies, an opponent of the El Paso Chihuahuas.  There was also a group of girls wearing crimson and white varsity jackets with an NM logo, but I couldn’t identify their team or their school.  The Aggie Women’s team got a cheer as their win this afternoon at UMKC was announced.  I missed the rest of the halftime show.  It was something involving a pink scooter as a prize, I think.  The relevant halftime stats on the video board had the Aggies shooting 46%, 45% on 3-pointers, and 90% on free throws. 

The radio call was back for the second half.  Thank goodness.  The half started with another blown call as a Roo 3-pointer was scored after the shot clock had expired.  The crowd and Coach Weir were up in arms over it.  There was a couple with a little girl in front of me.  I started noticing that they were taking non-stop selfies during the game.  I would have been annoyed, but they were having such a good time, I couldn’t blame them.  The UMKC Roos had on attractive Golden State Warriors-like uniforms in blue and gold.  I didn’t notice until the second half that some of them shiny, silver highlights on their shoes.  Obviously, the game wasn’t too interesting at this point.

57-42 Aggies at a timeout.  Kiss Cam got a good laugh out of the crowd.  There was another TO almost immediately afterward.  A fan took some shots and won $50 on a free throw.  At 60-24, Ian Baker hit a three to get to 20 points.  Jemerrio Jones had a one-on-one under the basket with a defender.  He faked him out for a layup and was smiling and talking afterward.  Braxton Huggins hit a three to jolt the crowd for his 10^th point.  67-49 with 11:15 left.  At this point, some of the crowd started leaving. 

More shirts were tossed into the crowd.  Being pretty high up, I wasn’t expecting anything, but the couple in front of me put down their smart phones long enough to get one.  Jermaine Haley got a coast-to-coast reverse layup to take it to 77-56, 7:05 left.  Most of the starters began to come out.  At 85-61, a Hooters wing promotion kicked in for the team scoring 85 points or more.  I don’t like wings, so I didn’t get the details.  (“What about the girls there, J?”  “Don’t care.  Food trumps women.”)  Haley made a great pass inside to Jalyn Pennie for a big cheer.  Local boy, Joe Garza came in and scored on a lay up to excite the crowd. 

At 90-67, Jack Nixon pronounced the rest of the game as “Garbage time.”  Our final was 94-71 Aggies.  The team pretty much put on a clinic tonight.  They kept up a full-court press the whole game with good defense and rebounding, not to mention to mention shooting.  Ian Baker was the high-scorer with 20 and three other players were in double digits.  That’s 16 in a row for the team, taking care of business.  For the size of the crowd, it wasn’t very loud or into it for the most part.  Credit the Aggies for playing well enough that they didn’t really even need any extra energy from them and taking the drama out of the event.    

What-A-Burger coupons were being handed out at door, yet another giveaway.  On the back of my three tickets, one had another What-A-Burger coupon, another had a Caliche’s frozen custard coupon, and the other had an expired Scholotzsky’s coupon, which was too bad, because it was a really good one.  Things had not warmed up outside as you might imagine.  What came next was the ordeal I’d been dreading even before I left for the game: getting out of the parking lot.  It took about the length of the post-game show, so about 10-15 minutes.  Given the crowd, that might be as bad as it gets. 

I would like to say I enjoyed this, but I didn’t.  Though I’ve been listening to Men’s games on the radio during the season, I don’t have much of a connection to them.  This game was almost too easy for them for it to be exciting.  The crowd size was impressive and cool, but not a factor, except for the exiting traffic.  I was surrounded by co-workers, but not actually sitting next to any of them, so I was by myself in a crowd.  It just made me lonely.  I wish Ron had been able to come.  The most positive thing I can say is that nothing bad happened, and if I have someone to go with that I wanted to impress, these Men’s games would otherwise be the best Aggie sporting events to attend.  I might go back sometime next season, since I have to try the hamburgers.