My Experience as a "Normal" Spectator

For those of you who don't know, I'm a little crazy about basketball. Like I really get into it. I scream the whole time, I live for group cheers, and I practically howl every time they miss a free-throw. I love basketball. Perhaps a little more than the average person should. I'm from Indiana, though. It's part of our culture. African Americans have February, Indiana has March. 

Normally when I go to a basketball game I am either surrounded by other bball nuts, like my family, or I'm in the band. Before high school, I went to or watched games with my family and we all screamed and cursed and had a great time. During high school I went with the band and we screamed and cheered and played our instruments as loud as we could. Now that I'm in college I go with the band and scream and cheer and curse and play my instrument and have a great time. It's my favorite sport. 

This time however, despite the fact that it was a "home game", the NIT forbade us from having more than 30 people in our pep band. The other team I'd like to point out didn't bring a band. My band director chose to take 30 brass players. So one of my band friends and I decided to get tickets like normal students and go to the game. It was an interesting experience. 

At first it was fun. We went in through the front entrance, we handed over our tickets to be scanned (instead of showing our instruments), and walked serenely past the concessions stand with the knowledge that we could get food later if we wanted it. It was even kind of fun picking our seats. 

The rest of the game sucked though. We somehow got stuck near a bunch of people who clearly aren't basketball fans. They hardly ever cheered and they kept giving me strange looks. What was I supposed to do, be quiet? I cheered and screamed and yelled nasty things at the refs like I always do. If you're not hoarse at the end of a basketball game, then you weren't paying attention. Plus, I assume this was due to the NIT, they didn't do any of the cool stuff. No cute promos, no halftime show, the band wasn't allowed to play hardly ever, no carolina girls, no awesome startup thing, no t-shirts falling from the ceiling. Nothing. It's like they sucked all the fun out of it. It wasn't like a home game at all; we might as well have been at Davidson's court. Stupid. 

In the end once the novelty of having to get a ticket like a normal student had worn off, I really disliked the whole thing.