 "Photo: Jon Eilts")
The Athletic Department considered reducing the size of the student section for men's home basketball games because of a lack of attendance from the student body.
The action was delayed by the Student Government Association, which assured Aggie Athletics that the 12th Man could fill the allotted seats.
The seating arrangement at Reed Arena reserves 4,190 student seats distributed on both end of the court. In the 2008-2009 season the student section has not been filled to capacity. The highest attended game was the men's game against Oklahoma, with 3,364 students in attendance. The average for home games has been 1,500 for men's games and 200 for women's games.
"When prime student seats don't fill, those are seats that the community would buy," said Student Body President Mark Gold. "So they can't afford to leave empty student tickets for the chance that students might show up, when in reality, they could be selling those tickets to the community."
The demand for student tickets has surpassed the demand for public tickets. This reduces the risk of losing seats in the student section.
"With basketball, I feel like if we can fill [that section], we actually have an effect - not only on that individual game, but on the program as a whole, getting good players there," said Jimmy Bice, president of Reed Rowdies, the official fan club of Aggie Basketball.
"We won Baylor and Arizona because of the 12th Man. Period," said Hunter Bollman, student advocate of student services in SGA. "It's just a huge home court advantage it gives our team. When the 12th Man gets involved, it just boosts the players."
Pulling tickets for men's basketball home games are done through a lottery system. Students with an All Sports or All Sports Without Football Pass can register for the ticket pull online at www.aggieathletics.com. After registering through the website, students are sent a confirmation e-mail with a link that must be followed to complete the registration.
This lottery system is based on a point system. For every game attended, students receive one point, and their name is entered an additional time in the next lottery. With more frequent attendance, students have a greater chance of pulling a ticket for high-demand games, such as the upcoming Texas Tech, Oklahoma State and Texas games.
Once students are selected for a ticket another email is sent with a link for acceptance.
If students forgot to register for the game, they can still attend by showing up to Reed Arena at game time. Any student tickets not pulled through the registration are available for walk up students.
"We have never [turned a student away]," said Jeff Schmahl, senior associate athletic director. "Even if we are out of student tickets, they've been able to come in as standing room only, and we've always gotten them into Reed."
The lottery system only applies to men's basketball games; there is no prior registration required for women's games. Average attendance at women's games has been consistently lower, a statistic that Aggie Athletics would like to see remedied for the nationally ninth-ranked team.
"We blow other schools away in student attendance. We're the best in the country in football, we're far and away the best in the country in soccer, we do extremely well in volleyball and we do extremely well in baseball," Schmahl said. "The one sport that is lagging behind is women's basketball."
Aggie Athletics is calling more students to join the excitement at Reed Arena.
"We have a good coach; we have the best facilities in the country now; we play in a great conference," Bice said. "The one thing that we haven't had consistently is fan support."
"Go to basketball games, men's and women's, so we can keep our seats," Gold said. "We need to sell out our seats."
Next game Registration is open for Wednesday's men's game against Texas Tech at 8 p.m.
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