Dr Copejam
- The Rock
Loudest Basketball Crowd You've Ever Heard (In Person)
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
I've always thought (mostly relying on TV) that Memorial Stadium can get shockingly loud when we are good and it's sold out, considering our stadium really is not enclosed at all ala Kinnick Stadium or somewhere like that where the noise gets trapped. That video on YouTube of the 2007 home game vs. Michigan is so loud when we score first. Hope we can get Memorial back to that soon.
Senior night vs. Iowa last year clinching share of Big Ten Title after Wisconsin inexplicably lost earlier in the day to make a miracle possible. Was a beautiful night.
Still bitter I had to turn down a ticket in the Arizona booster section for that Elite 8 game. Bought a VCR and after going radio silent for the night (which was still possible before everyone had cell phones) woke up the neighbors above and below screaming like an idiot at 12:30 a.m; then called my dad, but didn’t wake him up because he was still full of adrenaline from being there.
Still bitter I had to turn down a ticket in the Arizona booster section for that Elite 8 game. Bought a VCR and after going radio silent for the night (which was still possible before everyone had cell phones) woke up the neighbors above and below screaming like an idiot at 12:30 a.m; then called my dad, but didn’t wake him up because he was still full of adrenaline from being there.
I've always thought DIA should invest in a decibel meter. It could then track records for loudest, sustained levels - longest above X. Challenge the crowd to exceed X db for several minutes or to exceed some number during the game ....
At least we'd be able to compare the AH moments across seasons
At least we'd be able to compare the AH moments across seasons
Shout out to you for including something from that era. On the court
, that was one of the most blah seasons of Illinois basketball ever. You can't even say that team was bad. It was just boring.
Big Jack
- Decatur
Has Shaun Pruitt made a free throw yet? Asking for a friendShout out to you for including something from that era. On the court
This x100 - amazing game and unless you were there, you wouldn’t believe how loud it got. Just crazy.The roar as Deron Williams hit “The Shot” at the Rosemont Arena as the Illini came back to tie and then beat Arizona was the loudest crowd I’ve ever heard in person. It was especially loud because only four and a half minutes earlier, the huge partisan Illini crowd was silent. My husband and I sat seven rows behind the AZ bench, and we watched Lute Olson go from cocky, holding a cup of water, to arms crossed, to agitated. Deron’s shot helped spur the Illini’s 20-5 run, and D-Will’s triple knotted the game at 80-80 with 38 seconds left in regulation. This roar was repeated even louder as Arizona missed its last shot in overtime, and the Illini won 90-89 to go to the Final Four…This was one of the most memorable moments in my life.
Illini - Georgia Tech in 1989. I was a freshman and it was bananas. Look at the box score and you can imagine it!
fightingillini.com
Men's Basketball vs Georgia Tech on 1/22/1989 - Box Score - University of Illinois Athletics
The official box score of Men's Basketball vs Georgia Tech on 1/22/1989
fightingillini.com
Gonna sound weird, but the most my ears have ever hurt was after covering a high school regional final as a reporter. Game was in an old WWII-era gym with all sorts of wooden trusses and a curved roof and even though it was a bandbox it was loud, seemed almost as loud as some rock shows I've been to.
Loudest event I've been to on the U of I campus was the 1992 regional volleyball final at Huff. We scored a point to go up 15-14 in the first set (match point under the old scoring system) that was one of the longest rallies I've seen in person and it was funny, the crowd got louder and louder and then suddenly just leveled off because I think everyone in the gym was screaming. That set up a serve from our career aces leader that was promptly drilled into the net, we lost the game, and eventually the match. But it was fun as hell.
Special mention to the 1990 game against Iowa. Not the loudest event I've ever been to but easily the most anger and tension I've seen at a sporting event, save for a couple of high school games where the crowd was shouting racial slurs at my teammates. I actually felt sorry for the kids on Iowa's team who looked genuinely afraid all because of some garbage their coaches pulled, but it sure felt good to beat them.
Loudest event I've been to on the U of I campus was the 1992 regional volleyball final at Huff. We scored a point to go up 15-14 in the first set (match point under the old scoring system) that was one of the longest rallies I've seen in person and it was funny, the crowd got louder and louder and then suddenly just leveled off because I think everyone in the gym was screaming. That set up a serve from our career aces leader that was promptly drilled into the net, we lost the game, and eventually the match. But it was fun as hell.
Special mention to the 1990 game against Iowa. Not the loudest event I've ever been to but easily the most anger and tension I've seen at a sporting event, save for a couple of high school games where the crowd was shouting racial slurs at my teammates. I actually felt sorry for the kids on Iowa's team who looked genuinely afraid all because of some garbage their coaches pulled, but it sure felt good to beat them.
Got to go a bit further back in Bulls history.
Old Chicago Stadium on West Madison Street. Now a parking lot. But if you listen closely... you can still hear the noise from across all the years. Loudest place on the face of the Earth. Would make the runways at O’Hare or Midway sound like the inside of library.
Legal attendance in Chicago Stadium per fire department rules was 16,666. But for Blackhawks and many Bulls games you got over 20,000 crammed in there. Not sure anyone ever knew exactly how many. Probably didn't want to know for legal reasons. Standing room only in the upper decks was shoulder-to-shoulder and two or more rows deep. And god help you if you needed to make your way to the restroom.
And it was bedlam in there. The noise and sound waves were so intense you could FEEL THEM ON YOUR SKIN. Not kidding. It was like bugs scrawling all over you. But you loved it. And after the game... your ears would ring for three days.
Sad thing was that neither team won anything big in those years. The fans wanted it so, so bad... gave their heart and soul and LUNGS to make it happen... but the teams couldn’t close the deal.
Still, it was fun as hell. May never be anything else like it again.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Yeah, lol, I only remember the deafening roar of that crowd so well because it was my first Illini game ever in Champaign (had seen them in our hometown of Iowa City four times by this point). You could tell our crowd atmosphere was still riding the ‘05 wave, because yeah … some of that video is hard to watch compared to what we’re used to now!Shout out to you for including something from that era. On the court
IIRC the ice dimensions were grandfathered in also. Rink was not NHL regulation in the later years. Center ice was smaller. What a place.
I recall sitting in the lower bowl at the end of the ice one day, and I was kind of just standing there stretching out between periods (those seats were small as hell, lol) just randomly scanning the upper deck and making actual eye contact with a guy who was in standing room at the back of the upper deck. When they were building the UC across the street it looked like the whole Stadium could cleanly fit inside the seating bowl of the new building. That place was fun.
Andy Kaufman last second shot to beat Iowa in ‘93
Surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet, but the IDKWTI game was probably my loudest.
Yes. They had to keep the distance from the blue lines to the goal lines regulation. So they took the footage out between the blue lines. That made for very quick transitions and counter-attacks. That itself was exciting enough...
But then you add to this era guys like Bobby Hull picking up the puck in his defensive zone and rushing the length of the ice and then releasing a blistering slap shot or wrist shot on a helpless goal tender. Goalie never a chance. Just lost the Golden Jet the other day. Fans went crazy over the guy when he played on the West Side.
And guys like Stan Mikita who was a stickhandling magician. He could score too, but also was a master at the great set-up pass.
The Blackhawks had a bunch of legends together back then but except for way back in 1961 they couldn't win the Cup... not until almost 50 years went by. A couple of generations. They did come very close in 1971 but blew it to Montreal in a Game 7 collapse.
I can vouch for old Chicago Stadium with its multiple upper levels being ear-splitting loud. 18-20,000 people in a volume about half the size of current arenas. There was no place for sound to escape. I recall a Bulls playoff game where Artis Gilmore (I think) tipped in a shot at the buzzer to win. It took days to recover.
I was going to mention this. This is by far the loudest sporting event I’ve ever attended. I can still recall my legs trembling when Illinois took the lead. I wonder how loud it would’ve gotten had we won.
The loudest basketball game I’ve attended was in 1998 vs Michigan State. Second loudest was the Wake Forest game. Those were amazing games to be at.
LarryGotFouled
- Plano, TX
I was there. That was by far the loudest in person I’ve heard. Right when Battle dunked in OT to clinch it and threw both arms in the air. Crowd went insane.Illini - Georgia Tech in 1989. I was a freshman and it was bananas. Look at the box score and you can imagine it!
Men's Basketball vs Georgia Tech on 1/22/1989 - Box Score - University of Illinois Athletics
The official box score of Men's Basketball vs Georgia Tech on 1/22/1989
DICKnaggie
- Champaign
The crescendo of understanding when DWILL hit the Arizona shot, the incredible sonic gutteral agreement, after my younger brother had pledged 5 minutes earlier that if we pulled it off, he would run around pantsless around our folks home in Lincolnshire in SW Champaign. Our family still celebrates his efforts to this day!
For me it was MJ era Bulls Finals games at the Stadium, pre-United Center, and it's not close. My season tickets were free-throw line extended behind the visitors bench in row 3 of the first balcony, and at the biggest moments I couldn't hear the people I was sitting with even if we were yelling. Like a jet engine roaring in front of you.
I think the win over UCLA for me. Humblebrag, it's partly because it's my first and only courtside experience for an Illini game and I was pretty @#&#@ing loud myself.
Agree that for basketball (and hockey for that matter), games at the Old Chicago Stadium were ear-splittingly loud. Can confirm ear ringing for more than a day after going to one of those games. However, I'd say that isn't necessarily in the spirit of this thread as while the fans were indeed great, it was the stadium itself that led to such high decibels. For the Illini, sadly I did not get to see most of the super high decibel games in person, though I was at the Eric Gordon game and it was very loud and very borderline homicidal. Fun times. From TV viewing experience, it had to be the Illinois-Arizona Elite 8 game. There were some very loud ones, but hearing that I think is the closest thing to what the Old Chicago Stadium experiences were. It sounded like a jet engine on tv and I'm sure it was louder in person.