State Farm Center

[Fighter of the Nightman]

Kind of a slow day, and I just wanted to say that I really hope the atmosphere at SFC is just simply flat-out better than last year on a consistent basis this year. All throughout this great renaissance of our program since 2019-2020, the SFC has just simply not gotten back to the mid-2000s level, EVEN for many big games. It has shown flashes of an absolute frenzied atmosphere for some really big, especially hyped and relatively rare games ... but our baseline for, say, a Tuesday night home game vs. Minnesota, always falls back to a frankly unacceptable level.

I am hopeful that this year could be different. The Krush seemed to respond to online criticism last year, and it got a lot better toward the end of the year, IMO. Additionally, whatever "reservations" our fans could have POSSIBLY had are now gone. We made it back to the NCAAs, we won multiple Big Ten banners, we've had elite NBA-level players come through, we have made it out of the Second Weekend AND we then we didn't just finally make it back to the Final Four ... we followed that accomplishment up with returning so much talent that we have a reasonable goal of doing it in back-to-back years for the first time in most fans' living memories.

There should be no excuse not to sell out every single home game that isn't vs. a total cupcake, and I would hope even those would easily break 15k.

 

[Illini IndyCar Fan]

Kind of a slow day, and I just wanted to say that I really hope the atmosphere at SFC is just simply flat-out better than last year on a consistent basis this year. All throughout this great renaissance of our program since 2019-2020, the SFC has just simply not gotten back to the mid-2000s level, EVEN for many big games. It has shown flashes of an absolute frenzied atmosphere for some really big, especially hyped and relatively rare games ... but our baseline for, say, a Tuesday night home game vs. Minnesota, always falls back to a frankly unacceptable level.

Really good point about the atmosphere comparing unfavorably to decades ago, but I wish more people here would attend games. There have been multiple times I've been flabbergasted after getting home and reading the post-game comments from people who watched the game on TV talking about lack of a good environment - while the actual at-game experience was the exact same as a previous game they mentioned as being better.

I think at least some part of those discussions are really just people criticizing Peacock sound design vs ESPN sound design vs FOX/B1G sound design, but people don't realize that's what they're actually talking about when they're complaining about the crowd's "lack of energy".

 

[Rooftop]

Really good point about the atmosphere comparing unfavorably to decades ago, but I wish more people here would attend games. There have been multiple times I've been flabbergasted after getting home and reading the post-game comments from people who watched the game on TV talking about lack of a good environment - while the actual at-game experience was the exact same as a previous game they mentioned as being better.

I think at least some part of those discussions are really just people criticizing Peacock sound design vs ESPN sound design vs FOX/B1G sound design, but people don't realize that's what they're actually talking about when they're complaining about the crowd's "lack of energy".

Good point as well, although "sound" at the United Center games is always off the charts. It seems to me that the Chicago-area Illini nation fans that hit up that game don't sit on their hands at all and the whole arena becomes orange krush like. I don't get a sense of that in Champaign.

 

[Illinidrew]

Unpopular opinion. I think people just complain about this every year since the beginning of time, but from going to the games it is basically about the same as always. The place is rocking for Top-tier opponents and in huge situations. It is not against teams we should beat or cupcakes. I remember posts like this even during the 05 run, and when I look at other team forums they have the same thread going. I even saw Duke fans complaining about their own environment.

 

[Toews]

I'll also say comparing our basketball atmosphere to football makes our basketball atmosphere seem better

 

[Chief Piasa]

Unpopular opinion. I think people just complain about this every year since the beginning of time, but from going to the games it is basically about the same as always. The place is rocking for Top-tier opponents and in huge situations. It is not against teams we should beat or cupcakes. I remember posts like this even during the 05 run, and when I look at other team forums they have the same thread going. I even saw Duke fans complaining about their own environment.