Grab Bag: Attendence, money, and hoops.

First, as noted by INCH Wisconsin is once again leading the nation with an average of almost 15,000 tickets being sold for each game. This leads 7 NHL teams as well.

Secondly, the Wisconsin State Journal had an article about the marketing side of Wisconsin athletics. Even with an 80 million dollar budget, the university only spends around 750 thousand on self-promotion. Right now, it seems like the biggest hurdle is the fact that everyone knows season tickets for football and men's basketball sell out, so it's important just to keep the interest levels high. Of course, this brings up the question: if the student's don't arrive till midway through halftime, are they doing a good job with their most important constituents?

Third, hoops lost to Indiana on Wednesday. While not entirely unexpected, it does hurt us in a bunch of ways. One, all of a sudden Indiana becomes the third horse, and I'll explain why later. Second, Michigan State may have the biggest pull in who is getting the #1 seed in the Big 10 tourney. Although you can't tell it by their 1-7 record, Penn State does play Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Indiana a total of 5 times remaining on the season, but do the Nittany Lions ever pose a threat? Michigan State, on the other hand, plays the top 3 teams 4 times, all of them at the Izzone save for a trek to Madison. If MSU fails to protect their house against any of those three teams, either Indiana drops out of contention or the Wisconsin - Ohio State becomes the Big 10 title game.

So, what caused Indiana's uproar? First off, their losses, in traditional Big 10 fashion, are on the road, at Ohio State and Illinois. Second, they only played Ohio State and Wisconsin once this year. Third, they've only had 3 road games so far, and while @ Northwestern and Purdue may not be daunting, they travel to MSU, Iowa, and Michigan, where they could very well lose 2 games.