The Bobcat Nation

Hey the new Jeff Welsch commentary piece in today's BDC is right on the money. We all have talked about the ambience at basketball games... at least he has the voice to get heard about it.

http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articl ... welsch.txt

Every game you watch a c llege basketball game on T.V., the home teams always seem to have crowds that are going bonkers for the entire game... no reason we can't have that, as well.

The Brick is just like a giant cave, we need to liven it up a bit...

GavinDonos wrote:Hey the new Jeff Welsch commentary piece in today's BDC is right on the money. We all have talked about the ambience at basketball games... at least he has the voice to get heard about it.

http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articl ... welsch.txt

Every game you watch a c llege basketball game on T.V., the home teams always seem to have crowds that are going bonkers for the entire game... no reason we can't have that, as well.

The Brick is just like a giant cave, we need to liven it up a bit...

To get real BB tickets in Missoula you need to plunk down $550 before football. Anyone with that kind of money is more of the giant cave type and if they are even around during the basket ball season they might prefer hiring a student section to liven it up for themselves.

I agree with most of the article, although I think that Thursday's crowd for the PSU game was one of the best I've ever seen at the Brick.

I have to say that I was extremely disapointed with Saturday's crowd. There were people yelling at Mick to change his defense or put Woodall in. They were yelling at Miller to stop taking stupid shots (I think he only had 2 maybe 3 wild shots), people were yelling at the refs. All in all, I thought it was a very negative environment for a game where our team just clinched second place and a bye into the semifinals. It's pretty amazing what this team has done this year. When was the last time that a team has been picked last in both polls, lost their starting point guard for the year, and ended up second in the league. Congratulations Bobcats, on a great season...let's get a couple more wins!

I do somewhat agree with the article. I agree I'm always dissapointed a little with how quiet the Brick is most of the time. I feel almost like I shouldn't cheer... like it would be a sin or something. I do hate the off-color remarks a lot of the students do, but it's only because it's so quiet most of the time that you can hear them individually.

But it is true what Mr. Welsch said: fans at MSU generally wait for the team to get them cheering. It is the same for football. We are generally quiet until the Cats get rolling. I have never liked it, but that is just the kind of fans MSU has. We're frustrated easy with bad play, but we cheer our guts out when the Cats do something right.

Football has definately improved leaps and bounds since my Freshman year in the fan department, and I had never been to a Bobcat game until last year when we lost to... Sac?... to end our postseason hopes. I went to 5 this year, and the crowds got increasingly better.

I know it sucks, but get a winning team in there and the fans will get better. Look how much we improved this year, and we barely even reached .500.

Cheerleaders might help at little. Changing up the music in the timeouts might help.

What I noticed this year is that when the crowd got loud and a timeout was called, the crowd was usually sitting and silent again by the time it was over. When we had cheerleaders they would start a go cats go cheer or something of the sort toward the end of the timeout to keep the momentum going.

Bozeman Chronicle Editorial

In the very same paper in the editorial section-there's a Chronicle editorial about the Sunday afternoon Cat-griz game and the more family friendly and more sober atmosphere that game had.

I agree with a lot of what Welsch has to say, but I've always thought Bozeman crowds are a little more laid back. I think the same can even be said about Bozeman Hawks crowds. I think it might partially be a Bozeman thing.

Cheerleaders would definitely help.

I also found it funny that he waited until the last game of the season to blast the fans and the gameday environment. Why not challenge the fans/athletic marketing staff in the middle of the year so they can make some changes?

That's like covering bobcat basketball the entire season with no criticism, and after the final game of the year blasting the players and coaches for mistakes that they've made the entire year.

He's probably correct in some of his assessments, but why wait until the season is over and nothing can be rectified until next season?

Not why he chose til now, but I am glad that he did at least write something. Maybe it will challenge the students a bit. I think it would just take a couple of students wanting to make a difference to get some organization going for some "innovative" cheers that would get all of the student section going. It might take some effort, but I think it could be done if they could find a way to make it fun for the students also. They did get together pretty well at the um game when getting on Kamarr Davis with the "Honor Student" cheer.

Boy, I don't know how to get the south side section going though. When I am there, I yell my head off, but I mostly get dirty looks for yelling too loud or too much

Have to say the the Chronic sports section has vastly improved its reporting. Seems to be something in their 6 of 7 days a week regarding hoops and football. Very refreshing to have someone come in with the guts to point out the faults and someone needs to take the lead, because it doesn't look like the school is going to do it. Yes it was 'too little-too late' but the whole staff is new to Bozeman and just feeling things out you'd think. I also doubt they want to have to take a stand in fear of alienating some people, so they get props for that, too.

My one thought on the whole basketball experience in the fieldhouse is that the court is too far away from the seats. I like the seats to be right on top of the action. I wish they would pull the end seats up tight to the floor and make one of those sections the student section.

Wow, the subject comes up again. How to improve the game day experience. As a side bar, at one of the football games last year an older couple setting in front of us, told my son he was making to much noise! My son is 36 years old and we have had our 4 season tickets for 3 years now. Is this the attitude that prevails at all Bobcat games? I hope this next year the folks in front of us will remove their headsets, forget about Atterbury and get involved with the game. MSU needs to revist the game day experience. The BDC article should be taken seriously by the fans, staff and this board.

Lets continue to push for a better game day experience via this board and our input to Peter Fields.

Yea there were some people a couple times last year that were mad that we were standing the whole game and cheering.

I agree with Jeff that our crowds need to improve, especially at basketball games. However, I disagree with a number of points in his article.

First, I thought the Portland State crowd was great. For there to be 2,000 less people making more noise than the Cat-griz crowd was awesome. Sure, it wasn't Duke-esque (with apologies to mslacat), but like it or not, Montana State basketball will never get ACC-level crowds. The EWU game was a morgue, though.

Second, I disagree with his assessment of Brick Breeden Fieldhouse. It does leave a lot to be desired, and I firmly believe that MSU basketball will never reach another level until a new facility is built - but that is far, far in the future. But for Mr. Welsch to compare the Brick unfavorably to our Big Sky brethren is a joke. Anyone who would diss the Brick and praise Portland State's Class-C gymnasium that is half the size of my high school's gym loses a lot of respect from me. Has he been to a game at Adams in Missoula that wasn't a Cat-griz game. If you think crowds in Bozeman suck, the grizzly crowds make MSU's seem like a European soccer crowd.

Thirdly... the refs DO suck! If Jeff wants a suggestion for his next op-ed, maybe he could write a piece chronicling the poor level of officiating that is sadly becoming so prevalent in the Big Sky.

Welsh finally expressed in public what everyone has known since the Cats started playing in Breeden. The place IS a cavern. I don't care if 6,000 fans go nuts for the whole game, the loudest that place can get is about 40 dB.

The Cats just need a real hoop arena...a place where 2,000 sounds like 20,000.

Maybe my next comment is yet another knock on Mick. BUT, if a team takes on the personality of the head coach, does it also not make sense that the fans will, too? I think so. That's why I hope Coach Brown stays for a long long time.

My time in Bozeman was '91-'96, and I must say it was quiet even back in those days. We nicknamed the Brick "The Library". A buddy of mine even got kicked out of a Saturday day game against Montana Tech (in a game that was much closer than it should have been) for standing while the ball was in play.

My thought on this is that the success of the program will make the atmosphere at the gym. I went to many games in Missoula during the '90s, and the crowds during the Delvon Anderson/Roger Fasting/ Darren Engelant years were as rowdy and loud as can be. Now, it's crickets.

Inject some energy at the top of this program, win a few big games, and you'll see the fans come back. Anyone who was at the MSU/Weber title game in '96 will tell you the fans in Bozeman can be a factor.

Bleedinbluengold wrote: The Cats just need a real hoop arena...a place where 2,000 sounds like 20,000.

I'd love to see a Cat game in Belgrade's Special Events Center-that place can make a typical high school band deafening!

If money were no object: I'd completely gut the Fieldhouse-spare nothing but the shell and then build a modern arena inside the walls. But first we'd probably need a new all purpose rodeo, indoor track, indoor football practice barn.

But before we go doing that lets fix the endzone at the football stadium.

BozoneCat wrote:If you think crowds in Bozeman suck, the grizzly crowds make MSU's seem like a European soccer crowd.

How do you figure that when average attendance for MSU and UM is virtually the same?

How about those dudes in the east bleachers under the hoop growing in size from about 15 guys standing the whole time cheering on thurs to around 150 to 200 on sat. They may not have been the most creative bunch but it was cool to have a rowdy section. They were yelling at ewu's players and causing a little havac. Hopefully next year that will continue and grow till we have a rowdy section. They helped excite the whole crowd.

BelgradeBobcat wrote:

Bleedinbluengold wrote: The Cats just need a real hoop arena...a place where 2,000 sounds like 20,000.

I'd love to see a Cat game in Belgrade's Special Events Center-that place can make a typical high school band deafening!

If money were no object: I'd completely gut the Fieldhouse-spare nothing but the shell and then build a modern arena inside the walls. But first we'd probably need a new all purpose rodeo, indoor track, indoor football practice barn.

But before we go doing that lets fix the endzone at the football stadium.

I would like to see all of that done, but we are going to have to see a lot faster growing Gallatin Valley for any of that to happen.

Indeed...a new hoop arena would be about $20MM probably.