Maize Rage Expansion/Crisler Atmosphere

I just don’t see how that’s the case. Ideally you have 1000 students who are already passionate and going to be loud wherever they are sitting. We know that’s not the case, so you have to try to solve the problem of making the students who do come to the game more engaged and part of the action.

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I posted the petition on Mgoforum. Feels like this is the time to strike.

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Signed. I’m all for having as many passionate Michigan basketball fans in the arena as possible. Michigan hoops has been my favorite team since I was 4 years old (born in 1982). I’ve made countless trips from Indianapolis to Crisler and far too many of those had an arena filled with apathetic fans. I truly believed that the Crisler renovation and JB dragging us out of the decade of darkness would rejuvenate the fanbase. We have been one of the most successful programs in the country for over a decade, and yet the “down in front” crowd still occupies way, way too many seats. It’s far past due that those seats are given to fans who actually care about the program.

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I think part of the problem is that “fans who actually care about the program” and want to go to the games and passionately cheer is not a very large number. I just don’t know very many Michigan alums who are hardcore basketball fans- the vast majority seem to sort of follow things and then get super into it around this time of year. In other words, I’m not sure you could even find 5,000 hugely passionate season ticketholders to fill up the lower bowl if you tried.

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I hear you but this explanation just doesn’t hold water for me. Michigan is one of the largest public universities in the country with a 40k+ strong student body (?) and even more alumni. We also have the largest share of out of state students of any public school out there. So, how is our atmosphere consistently among the worst in the Big Ten?

Because Michigan fans in general don’t really like basketball. Ohio State also has a terrible basketball atmosphere. It’s not that complicated.

Ohio State has better attendance figures than us. The only schools with lower attendance than us are Northwestern, Minnesota, Penn State, and Rutgers. And again, I see no reason why Michigan fans wouldn’t like basketball. It makes no sense considering the makeup of the student body.

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I just don’t get it. Maybe it’s because I got to see a national championship as a kid and then the Fab Five came walking into Ann Arbor a couple years later. Michigan basketball was literally the coolest thing on earth to me. I don’t understand how that did not build into a very passionate fan base.

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I think you touched on it. The percentage of students who Michigan has coming in that are diehard Michigan fans, or even diehard sports fans, is almost certainly second lowest to Northwestern in the conference. Football still gets the people because it’s a big “thing.” It’s Michigan football. The question is how to make basketball also worth it to people who don’t like basketball. Making it more fun by putting more people in prime seats with other students who are engaged is probably something that would help.

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I won’t try to explain WHY Michigan fans don’t like basketball, they just don’t. Obviously we are all here, we all love basketball and don’t understand people who don’t. But the idea that there’s something the AD can do to make Michigan fans become more passionate is a bit silly to me. The best thing they can do is get more students closer to the court so I’m glad to see this petition.

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Do the non-student fans near the maize rage cheer more than those on the other side? I’m thinking its possible that having some students going wild nearby would make the regular fans cheer more …

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I get the concerns about the Maize Rage, Crisler atmosphere in general, but a big part of the issues this year have to do with the team, no? If this year and last year were flipped, and last year’s team was playing games in buildings with crowds then I imagine the vibe at Crisler over the last three months would be a lot different.

A big part of it, to me, is that Michigan isn’t a basketball first school. Hell, I started this site because no one took any real time to cover basketball.

Schools like IU, MSU, Illinois and Maryland have different atmospheres because of the fanbase more than the building IMO.

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I don’t know that we can expect to replicate the noise in Assembly Hall or Mackey or Breslin, sure. But we can expect more than library levels of noise. I signed the petition and retweeted it and it does feel like a nobrainer to expand the student section at least around the baskets or up a few rows, or, at least, SOMETHING.

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OSU plays in an arena that holds 6K more people

I agree Dylan, I think fundamentally there’s some seating distribution issues playing into how loud Crisler is but I really don’t think people would be talking about this the same way if it wasn’t for some of the home losses this year.

The majority of fans just aren’t loud when the other team is playing a lot better, and that’s pretty consistent throughout any arena I’ve been too. In 2018 when we won at MSU I thought that place was nearly silent for the majority of the game. One of my two year as Superfan Michigan only lost one conference home game and everyone was saying that the Crisler atmosphere was underrated. Obviously individual fans do play into it, but atmosphere is more indicative of team performance than anything else most of the time.

That said, I still think having more students near the court would increase the baseline noise level and help promote home court advantage.

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This is a major reason the environment is so bad

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It’s made far worse by the performance of the team, but even in good years when the stadium is relatively full the atmosphere pretty much sucks

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OSU is also located in a big city, which helps for weeknight game attendance. For those games you mostly get locals going. U-M isn’t far from Metro Detroit, but it’s just far enough to make going to weeknight games tricky from a traffic standpoint.

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I’d argue the opposite, basketball is a far more popular sport in areas outside of Michigan, especially the urban centers where our students tend to come from.

I’ve been a rabid Michigan basketball fan since I was a kid in the 90s. I grew up in Ann Arbor, with season tickets, was in the Maize Rage as a student from 02-06, and am now a season ticket holder as an adult. I can tell you without a doubt that the atmosphere in Crisler is pretty bad regardless of how good the team is. I would agree if the team this year hadn’t flopped the crowds would be bigger, but a tough environment to play in? Intimidating? Absolutely not.

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