If Hog Fans Want True Respect, Here's Your Last Chance to Take It
Yesterday I got a message from a reader asking what I thought about the crowds at Bud Walton now.
First, I was honored someone remembered a story I wrote two months ago and had hung onto it waiting for the best chance to let me know Bud Walton can be rowdy like it used to be.
Second, the gentleman was correct.
Much like the team, the fans had been lackluster at best leading into mid-January.
When I wrote that column it took the most minimal of effort to put together photos of thousands of empty seats despite claims of a sell-out. There were hundreds of high hustle play photos by Razorbacks with stacks of Razorback fans sitting quietly in their chairs behind them relatively uninterested.
Fans kept blaming ESPN for having its volume too low on their mics, but then an Auburn game would come on and clearly ESPN mics weren't the issue. The fans needed a fire lit under them and a change of attitude also.
Shortly after that column and those images came out, a steady bubbling began underneath the surface.
It started with fans, especially students, trying to get people who weren't showing up to sell their tickets at a reasonable rate. Then Eric Musselman jumped in by encouraging people who weren't using tickets to let him have them so students and families in need could attend games and increase the quality of the atmosphere.
Now with the empty seats relatively squared away, it was time to convince a massive group of "sitters" who not only refused to stand up and cheer, but were also the full line of site for the hard camera at home games which meant recruits were seeing them on TV instead of the rowdy students and fanatics they were seeing at other schools.
This came in two waves.
First, a few students managed to get some of those tickets in the "sit down sonny!" section and did what good fans do – they stood and cheered. This drew the ire of the elder season ticket holders who "came to watch the game, not you jumpin' around screaming and shakin' your buns all over the place."
A lot of this complaining was voiced via Facebook, which, while packed with the 60 and over crowd, is a desert for people under 30, so none of those whipper-snappers read it.
Over on Twitter and Instagram, where the under 30 crowd makes up the majority of the population, they expressed a need to fill up the hard camera side section with students who would make it their mission to stand and have fun the whole game. They hoped the elder crowd would remember what it was like to have fun at basketball games, or, at the very least, force the season ticket holders to have to stand up to see the game.
As Musselman and the players pushed for more energy from the crowd, pressure built, and, finally, those rears that had been so firmly affixed to their seats, and, for pretty much the first time all season, showed the viewers and recruits watching from home that Arkansas fans could get involved in the game.
What also came naturally at the time was the loudness. Finally it didn't sound like the Hogs were trying to play the game in their dorm room at 3 a.m. next door to the R.A.
The energy was up. So were the wins.
But if Arkansas was going to run with the big dogs both on the court and surrounding it, it would be up to the students. And boy did they step up the game.
Auburn had been the class of the conference with its white-outs/orange outs, students lining the lower bowl, and head-splitting noise. It was an atmosphere that had recruits begging to experience.
So, the students decided if the Hogs were going to take down No. 1 Auburn on the court, they would take down the Tigers' fan base off it. So they began organizing with the university.
Auburn does a white-out? Arkansas will do it better.
Auburn is loud? Arkansas will shake the walls.
Auburn has energy? Arkansas will match that energy and get pop-poms.
Nelson Chenault / USA TODAY Sports
Nelson Chenault-USA TODAY Sports
Nelson Chenault / USA TODAY Sports
But doing that for one big game isn't what legitimate fan bases do. Arkansas had already lost a bit of credibility on that front by storming the court, so legitimacy would need to earned through repeated performances.
Arkansas went with a red-out that extended all the way down to the team getting special permission to wear red road uniforms at home against Tennessee. By the end of the night, the Volunteers went down and the fans were once again nationally heard.
Nelson Chenault - USA TODAY sports
Nelson Chenault - USA TODAY sports
Yet, the Razorbacks still weren't being treated with the blue blood pedigree the team earned from the 70's through the 90's. A team that wobbled its way through the first half of the season while mirroring a fan base that selfishly watched while seated and played on their phones couldn't expect to suddenly have the outside world act it's 1994 just because of a few high profile games.
There are whole sections of the country that don't watch the SEC Network, so Arkansas and its fans were invisible on SEC Network.
With only two home games not on the SEC Network, Arkansas and its home crowd was out of sight, out of mind, and out of respect.
There are millions in the country who don't have ESPN, instead opting for broadcast network channels to save money, which means they didn't see Arkansas in its lone ESPN 2 home game against Auburn and ESPN against LSU.
That meant Kentucky was the last and only shot at catching the attention of the country in front of a truly national audience.
So what do you do?
Bring it all together and then some as 2.4 million viewers look on.
Stripe it out. Throw in some sharks just because. Then line the arena with security like it's a WWE championship fight contract signing because J.D. Notae is throwing haymakers and these people might lose control.
Nelson Chenault - USA TODAY - Sports
Nelson Chenault - USA TODAY Sports
It was painfully loud as the Razorbacks jumped out to a big lead and held on in the end.
Bud did everyone take notice. After a weak first half to the season, had the fans finally rounded into championship form and gained respect?
The answer is a resounding yes. Of course the Razorbacks have the exact record filled with quality wins as Kentucky last Saturday, plus a head-to-head win and Kentucky is being treated as a potential #1 seed while Arkansas continues to be treated as if they have 10 losses and a losing conference record instead of only six losses and a second place spot in the SEC, but did you see the other fans justifying this?
From Kentucky to Alabama, to Tennessee and even Auburn, fan bases are starting to go after Arkansas. They claim Razorback wins shouldn't matter because they were at home. They scoff that it's just the regular season so it really doesn't matter.
Arkansas and its fans, after nearly being checked out of their own heads for a massive chunk of the season are now living rent free in heads all across the southeast. Those excuses are your respect.
But there's one caveat. LSU comes to town to close out the regular season at Bud Walton.
If you want to see continuous disrespect toward Arkansas, look no further than the Bayou Bengals. They lost and they lost and they lost. Yet, they had to fall to 9th place in the SEC with a head-to-head loss to Arkansas without Eric Musselman to slip just barely below the Hogs.
MUSSELMAN MAKES 'SMART' DECISION TO LAND KEY WIN AT LSU
Lose this game, and it all goes away. All that hard work, all that coordination, all that energy becomes wasted.
This is the season finale of the Bud Walton is a better place to play than yours tour. It's the last shot for fans to show how much they can impact the game.
It's the Hogs last chance to prove they are a tier above LSU.
Students should be dressed as FBI investigators for all the shady stuff Will Wade has apparently gotten away with. Have signs with some of the things he did written on them.
Adam Cairns / USA TODAY Network
Be relentless, but don't curse and leave everyone's momma out of it. There are plenty of ways to get into people's heads without being trashy.
Last week students wore the sharks because there was supposedly blood in the water. Well, there actually is blood in the water this time.
The night must feel like a relentless nightmare. All five players on the floor must be vicious and terrifying from end to end. The fans must make LSU hurt from beginning to end with the noise.
Can you do it without a Final Four contender on your floor? If you want to keep and maintain the respect of a champion, you must be fearsome no matter who is in the building.
This team lives and dies with its fans. Give the gentlemen who contacted me one more reason to reach out and bag on me about an article pointing out how sub-standard the Arkansas fans were in January.
It'll make his day and you will get a much needed win and true respect in the process.
