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To help attract students to the University of Hawaii men’s basketball game on Saturday, the athletic department held a student tailgate party and offered $5 concession coupons to the first 100 through the gates.
“Free iPads, Apple watches, food and more …” the social media advertisements promised.
To drum up interest among older fans, UH celebrated its basketball centennial, replete with faces from the past and a countdown of top 10 moments.
The enticements provided a boost, but the best exercise in crowd-building UH has going for it is what Eddie Stansberry and the Rainbow Warriors put forth. The game-winning shot, a 3-pointer with 3.3 seconds remaining against UC Davis, provided a third consecutive victory and allowed them to hang onto a share of first place in the Big West Conference.
Sending patrons home happy and excited has, slowly but steadily, put the ’Bows (13-6, 4-1 conference) in the thick of the Big West Conference race, where they share the top spot with defending champion UC Irvine, and has allowed them to start building back up their in-house following.
Saturday’s crowd, 4,669, was the largest of the season, and through 15 games, UH is averaging 3,394 through the turnstiles at the Stan Sheriff Center. That’s slightly ahead of the two previous seasons at the same point. By season’s end, the team could be the best overall draw since the 28-6 and conference championship campaign of 2015-16 attracted an average of 4,417.
Saturday night’s gathering also seemed to bring out the best in the ’Bows. On Twitter, assistant coach Chris Gerlufsen offered, “A big thank you to all the fans who helped us WIN tonight.”
With any luck, the ’Bows should finally top 5,000 through the turnstiles for Saturday’s final appearance of the four-game homestand against Cal State Northridge.
But the leap to what could truly be called a “crowd” in the 10,300-seat facility would likely come Feb. 15, if the ’Bows are still smack dab in the title race. That’s when the Anteaters, the only Big West team to beat the Rainbow Warriors to this point, come to town and UH is scheduled to retire Bob Nash’s jersey.
Why it hasn’t already been hanging in the rafters is a whole other question.
When it comes to crowds, history tell us that unless there was a brand-name opponent on the schedule the turnouts have been sparse in the early season, then picked up a bump for the Diamond Head Classic. Since joining the Big West in 2012-13, there has often been a wait-and-see mode often lasting until late January while fans looked to see how the team would shape up and how competitive it would be in conference.
This year the nonconference schedule, bereft of Arkansas-Pine Bluff and less reliant on Division II opponents, has been an improvement over recent years. The NCAA ranks UH’s schedule 206th (out of 353 Division I teams), up from 292nd overall last year and an average of 264th over the past three years.
Meanwhile, the Big West is giving the appearance of being as wide open as it has been in UH’s eight years of membership.
The ’Bows have five home games remaining on their schedule, ample opportunity to put fans back in the stands.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
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