For those who didn’t know, Eastern Michigan’s women’s basketball team became the first fifth seed to make an appearance in the Mid American Conference tournament. It did so by sending the No. 1-seeded Toledo home Friday and played in the championship game Saturday.
One would be led to believe that being in the conference-title game would draw a pool of green and white to the Quicken Loans Arena.
That was not the case. The pep band was there, the faithful few were there and family of the players were there. But the green and white was swamped out by Bowling Green’s orange.
Granted, Quicken Loans Arena is almost like a second home for the Falcons as it is more than two hours away from Bowling Green’s campus. But it seemed as though EMU put up very little effort to compete with the noise of the Falcons’ fans.
There was no fan bus that traveled from EMU to Cleveland on Saturday. So, even if the students wanted to, their chances of being there for their team were slim — real slim. Without a fan bus, people are forced to either drive themselves, carpool or find some other way down to the tournament.
On top of that, there was not a feeling on campus that people knew the team would be in the championship game. It was put up on the Eagles’ website, but there was all of not three, not two, but one sign put up on the entire campus saying that the women would be playing for the MAC Championship.
Where were the text alerts when that happened?
I would argue that when it comes down to the championship game, the university should do all it can to pack the arena.
This might be a team who plays better on the road and is used to hearing the crowd when it’s down, not up, and it’s found a way to bring a silence to many arenas. But when the players look up and see nothing but green specks in an orange field, they have to search within themselves to find support. If you think the players don’t care or don’t notice, think again.
This was a game in which a team had a chance to do something that only happened once in the program’s history by getting an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament, the dream of any Division I college basketball team. Everything was on the line and everything was in place; well, everything except for the fans that is.
When it came down to crunch time and the Eagles had a chance to win, the bench was in the game, dishing out as much support as the players had in them.
But the question may arise of whether or not it could be heard over the thunderous noise coming from BGSU fans. The players knew what they were playing for but when they looked in the crowd they couldn’t find who they were playing for, other than themselves.
EMU can put 538 people in the Convocation Center for the men’s senior day during Spring Break when about 10 percent of students were on campus.
EMU could take a fan bus down to Cleveland for the men’s second-round tournament game last year. So my question is, why wasn’t there a way for the student body to support the women’s team when it needed it most?
