SIOC's got the scoop on Harry A. Gampel Pavilion

By Zac Boyer

What's the atmosphere like inside college basketball's most renowned arenas? Over the next few months, SIOC will travel to as many schools as we can and give a 10-point evaluation of each one. Today's stop: UConn.

	The Gampel Pavilion faithful pays tribute to UConn great Emeka Okafor. Stephen Slade/SI
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The arena was packed with students and fans anticipating the biggest home game of the season for the Huskies: a showdown with highly-rated Marquette. Eager to see how UConn's young team would fare against a rising conference powerhouse, the students showed up in droves at Gampel Pavilion, the Huskies' on-campus home, to cheer on the team and, of course, get in the heads of the Golden Eagles.

Luckily enough, the Hartford Civic Center -- the Huskies' downtown home away from home and the larger of the team's two venues  -- was booked, giving fans a more intimate setting for the big Marquette game. How did Gampel Pavilion stack up? Here's what we saw:

Attire

At the beginning of the season, the student section is given a modest white T-shirt with tie-dyed blue armpits, but most chose not to wear it during the game. A majority, however, did wear navy-and-white UConn shirts of some kind, with a few going to far as painting their faces or wearing white-and-blue afro wigs. Still, it would have been great to see the students all in white -- or, better yet, in blue.
Score: 6.5

Volume/Disruptability

While the game was very sloppy -- a characteristic befitting a Huskies team that features nine new players and no scholarship juniors or seniors -- the students still did their best while trying to inspire them. Unfortunately, the effort wasn't good enough in head coach Jim Calhoun's mind -- he went to midcourt after calling a timeout with just under four minutes remaining and stared the students down for not supporting his team enough. Bonus points are awarded, however, for the repeated chanting of Lazar Hayward's name when he touched the ball. Hayward burned the Huskies to play for the Golden Eagles.
Score: 7.0

Venue

As stated, it was a stroke of luck that the game was held at the domed Gampel Pavilion. The 10,167 seats were sold out and it provided a much more intimate atmosphere than the larger Hartford Civic Center a half-hour away where the team usually plays big games. At Gampel, the students sit on the baseline near the visitors' bench and can get in the minds of opponents who try to score on their basket during the second half. But alternate seating options, including sitting on the sidelines as in many other big-time programs, have repeatedly been shot down by the athletic department.
Score: 8.0

Chant/Sign Quality

Students rarely show up with signs, but they brought the heat, considering their team was playing a quality opponent. One sign featured a proclamation that Marquette was a safety school, and two students held up the now-infamous B and a padlock. Another had a spinner behind the basket to hypnotize opposing shooters. The sign of the night went to the student who held up a hand-drawn poster of Doug Funny, the Nickelodeon hero, to support freshman guard Doug Wiggins. As for the chants? Outside of taunting Hayward, there was little more than the typical "Go Huskies!" or spelling out the school name. What are cheerleaders for?
Score: 7.5

Student Body

UConn's big pregame ritual is standing and clapping along as 2 Unlimited's Get Ready For This plays in the background until the first basket is made, but outside of standing for the entire game, students didn't particularly seem to have much of an impact on the contest. That's not entirely their fault, however. The athletic department is generally unreceptive to the students' requests and it even made the cheap move of announcing that students had to return their plastic pom-poms before leaving the arena. One even held a sign that said "Rocky Hates Fans" --a swipe at the marketing coordinator. Still, here's extra credit as the student section was filled incredibly early -- especially impressive given that it was winter break.
Score: 7.5

Final Score: 36.5