Curious, what would going 1-1 in Fort Meyers mean, Carnak?

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I can't believe we are on page 4 and I am the first to post this!!!

Preach

Being able to continue our momentum next season is going to dictate how good our attendance will be. We have a decent schedule that has some hurdles, but there's not a game on it that we shouldn't be competitive in.

I'm assuming we will have some type of banner-raising ceremony for our first home game, correct? That should be good for at least one sellout. Nevada will be a sellout. Barring a complete meltdown, in the last two weeks of the season we should be in the thick of the race for the regular season conference title (like last year with ISU) and that should produce a sellout or two as well. I predict Gentile is filled up at least 4 times this upcoming season.

The big question is, what is the arena going to look like for the other 11 or so home games? There are certainly some X-factors:

1) Our Alumni - There's going to be a bump -- but how much is it going to be?

2) Other School's Alumni - We now have the target on our backs and whether or not we are ranked pre-season #1 in conference, everyone is going to be gunning for us, and more importantly, everyone is going to respect us. Chicago area alumni from other schools are going to want to come see their schools play us more than they ever have in the past.

3) "The Sister Jean" phenomenon -- Nobody in Chicago knew who she was -- now everyone in the country knows who she is. I bet we pick up some folks who want to come to the arena just to see her on the sideline.

4) Our students -- The biggest x factor on how our attendance will go this year. Last year our student section showed flashes of greatness, but nowhere near what we'd like to see in consistency. Our students got a taste of what it's like to go to a "basketball school," and it'll be interesting to see if the final four momentum carries over to the student body this year.

Last year was so much fun... I'm really hoping the atmosphere improves and we keep riding this wave.

The first question is how many seats are there bowl. That is our baseline.

These games are not only more attractive to Loyola, they are more attractive to schools playing us. Given the top four teams are from Illinois and all have a significant Chicago alumni base, I expect more sales overall.

We are now a top attraction.

The bench is going to be a major key moving into next season. We know our starting five should be able to go up with anyone; what I don't think we know yet is who comes first off the bench. Last season we were able to rely on Jackson and Williamson to give us a spark off the bench when need be; who will our sixth and seventh players be next season?

This is lack of bench depth really hurt the 16-17 team which had a ton of talent in their main 5 (counting Jackson here); but not a lot of proven talent off the bench (Skokna and Satterwhite as freshman + Tyson Smith coming off injury).

I think we definitely have players with the ability to play those roles; but it'll be curious to see who steps up as our top man off the bench.

This is where my high hopes for an injury-free Christian Negron come into play. I keep looking back at the numbers he put up in high school as well as his tape. He has a very high ceiling.

Assuming a starting lineup of Custer-Townes-Williamson-Uguak-Krutwig, I think we have the strongest starting 5 in the league. The success of the bench is going to depend on Negron's development/contribution, Skona's development and the freshmen. A bit scary that after Negron/Skona, we will be pinning our hopes on the freshmen. A grad transfer or JUCO transfer would have been really helpful this year (and may still be in the cards according to some sleuthing on another thread).

About 1,500 between the seats available and the student section. There seem to be another 500 season tickets sold in the upper deck, judging by the seat map.

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How many season tickets were sold last year?

Does that mean that no individual game tickets will be available for the lower bowl? Or do they set aside some non-season ticket, non-student section lower bowl seats for individual game sales?