New student section fails to impress

In recent years, student sections around the country have begun to become household names. Whether you're a part of the "Cameron Crazies" at Duke or the "Oakland Zoo" in Pittsburgh, visiting teams have begun to fear road games because of student sections.

There have been crazy student crowds at Seton Hall games in the past, including matchups against the conference's top teams during key times of previous seasons. Who could forget the atmosphere when Jeremy Hazell single handedly beat a nationally ranked Louisville team in the team's first season at The Rock or when the Pirates took No. 6 West Virginia to overtime on a late three from Hazell?

These games will forever be in my memory of what it is like to be a Pirate. The only problem is, there aren't enough of them.

In the beginning of the year, I thought that maybe this was the year where Hall's Hecklers makes itself known throughout the conference as one of the toughest places to play. The students were going to be sitting together for the first time and every seat in the student section was sold out prior to the first home game.

However, with just four home games left, the section just has not blended together like some people thought, including the athletic department.

For starters, the Gatorade tarp that covers the first three rows of the student section is completely ridiculous. Though I understand that this was not Seton Hall's decision (the Big East decided this during winter break), the tarp looks worse than open seats do on television. I do not understand the reasoning behind why the Big East conference made the school do this.

There has not been one incident in the section as of yet. Though there are occasional four, five or even seven letter words uttered in disgust, there has yet to be profanity laced chants towards officials or opposing players. For the most part, the students have behaved themselves.

Another major problem is the lack of conformity. There is very little noise coming out of the section during key points in the game. Sure the section is loud when the team is winning, but what about when the team is down a bucket and in need of a steal or a big three? And whatever happened to the unwritten rule of everyone standing during gameplay?

During winter break, I was watching the first installment of ESPN's College Gameday Live. Though I understand that there are plenty of better basketball teams playing at a level to deserve the crew to do their pregame show from their gym, I only wish that we had a crowd that was capable of making the amount of noise during a game that the represented schools make during a pregame show. Imagine what the building is like during a game?

Tim LeCras is a junior journalism major from Forked River, NJ. Tim can be reached at timothy.lecras@student.shu.edu.