Chicken or Egg: What's up with attendance at The Keg?

“It’s going to be a raucous environment which we haven’t had here at the Coors Events Center,” Colorado head coach Tad Boyle said, talking of the atmosphere he expects on Sunday in Colorado State’s Moby Arena.

The question was if Boyle thinks his team is excited to play in that hostile environment, having not had that at home yet this year. Boyle took the opportunity to address the latter more than the former.

“The fans that are here, thank you and I love you, we appreciate you coming here, but to say I’m disappointed [in attendance] would probably be an understatement,” the head coach admitted. “You can blame the schedule if you want. The one thing I will say is that our students weren’t here in class the last four games. Our students were in session today and are in class tomorrow.”

It’s something that Boyle has never been afraid to address and it’s something that is a legitimate concern. For a 6-1 team that went toe-to-toe with a top 10 program, notched a big-time road win in the face of adversity and has taken care of business every night at home, they’ve yet to have a game with attendance in the 8,000’s. The average announced attendance is 7,538 in the five home games and those who have been in the building will tell you that’s generous at best.

Chicken or egg? Well if one of those two is an entertaining team, it’s already arrived.

Like Boyle said, it would be convenient to blame the schedule, folks aren’t exactly chomping at the bit to go out and see Northern Colorado, Nebraska-Omaha or Air Force. I even had one fan last night use the 6 PM start as a reason for low numbers. Well, consider this, just last year the Buffaloes drew more than 10,000 for a 6 PM start against Drexel, nearly 10,000 for an 11 PM game against Auburn, over 9,000 for, common opponent, Air Force and even more than 8,000 for a noon tip on a Sunday against Lipscomb.

To me, this adds up to one thing, the 2015-16 Buffaloes are paying the price for the struggles of the 2014-15 Buffaloes.

Is that fair? Tad Boyle said it best: “We’ve got a great team that’s fun to watch and the people who aren’t showing up are missing out.”

This edition of the Buffaloes plays a highly entertaining brand of basketball. They’re moving the ball with grace and scoring more than 80 points in all six of their wins. They can finally shoot the ball, averaging 43 percent as a team from behind the arc. They have all the star power you could want with a bonafide star in Josh Scott who is averaging 18 points per game and emerging stars George King and Josh Fortune averaging 16 and 12 points per game respectively while both shooting 47 percent from deep. They have depth, they have young up-and-comers, you name it. The Buffs are back to being the best bang-for-your-buck in town.

I always say, ‘the students are the last to get the memo when a team is legit,’ and this seems to be the case here. The “C-Unit” has been basically empty for every game thus far. So how long will it take to get through to them? My guess would be a win over CSU this weekend would perk some ears, but even then the BYU game falls on the day before finals and the Nicholls State, Hampton and Utah games all come during Winter Break, meaning we could be looking at a Jan. 13, matchup with Oregon State as the first game with a strong showing from the students.

Halfway through the season before a potential tournament team gets a real crowd? That doesn’t seem right, but, simply put, it’s going to be up to the general public to change that. Is it likely? No. Is it doable? Yes. But one thing is for sure, with the way they’ve performed thus far, they deserve it.