Chaifetz Arena was supposed to be alive Wednesday night, but instead the building had all the energy of a coffee shop reading room.
This is not the way it ought to be. This is not the way a college basketball renaissance is supposed to look, supposed to sound, supposed to feel.
Late in the second half of St. Louis University's 64-50 victory over a stubborn Richmond team that makes every game it plays feel like a root canal, most of the 7,459 spectators inside Chaifetz played the role of passive witnesses, not crazed fanatics. Even when Kwamain Mitchell was draining picture-perfect 3-point bombs to salt away the Billikens' 21st victory of the season, the Chaifetz crowd responded with mild enthusiasm, not eardrum-splitting roars.
Rick Majerus has built himself quite an interesting basketball program here in midtown. He's revived a program that hasn't been to the NCAA Tournament in more than a decade and put the 21-5 Billikens in serious contention for the Atlantic 10 regular-season title (SLU is 9-3 and trails first-place Temple by a half-game with four to play). They have won five in a row, eight of their last nine and 15 of their last 18.
Majerus has the Billikens on the verge of going back to March Madness and streaking toward what could be one of their finest seasons in ages.
Yet here he was after the Richmond game, having to resort to hustling folks to come watch his team play, as if this was still the uncomfortable early stages of a rebuilding project rather than the sort of breakout season that once again confirms that he's still one of the best coaches in college basketball.
The student section was barely three-quarters full and there were nearly 3,200 empty seats in a building that holds 10,600. What a shame. SLU is playing winning basketball, just as Majerus promised it would when he first got here. The Billikens are beating everyone who gets in their way, grinding out victories some nights, playing great defense every night, always finding a way to do things the right way.
Yet they come back from an impressive 2-0 road trip and they are greeted by empty seats and a lukewarm audience that seems to wait for something to happen instead of being a rowdy home-court advantage. The student section, which can be quite engaging, clever and outrageously effective when properly motivated, barely stirred most of the night. The rest of the building was full of folks who just weren't all that interested in getting excited.
Ever diplomatic, Majerus was thankful for the people who showed up. But he was a bit puzzled by the ones who weren't here.
"I want to thank the crowd," Majerus said. "(Director of athletics) Chris (May) and these guys are doing a phenomenal job of trying to get people to come (to games). But I don't know what we have to do (to get more people to show up). We play hard. We have great kids who are student-athletes and in school. I thank the people who are here, (but) I hope more come out."
Maybe it's going to take more time than anyone here at SLU thought to get their rather fair-weather fan base to realize that something good is happening down here. The Billikens have had only one crowd all year that topped 10,000 (10,414 against Dayton two weeks ago, the second-largest crowd in Chaifetz history) and only one other crowd larger than 9,000 (Jan. 7 against George Washington). It seems that despite all their basketball team's winning this season, SLU fans need to be infatuated with the opponent instead of their own team.
That's probably why Majerus is worried that even as his streaking Billikens head into Saturday's 3 p.m. game against Fordham on a five-game winning streak, the students will choose to indulge in Mardi Gras parties off campus instead of coming to Chaifetz to see a Rams team that is 9-14 overall and sits in 13th place in the 14-team league.
"You can come here (first) then go to Mardi Gras the rest of the night," Majerus pleaded. "So we really have to get the students (to come to the game). I mean how early can you Mardi Gras?"
A student reporter answered the question, and it wasn't exactly what Majerus was hoping to hear.
"Seven a.m.," he said.
"Wow," Majerus said, laughing. "You don't look like that kind of guy. I bet your parents paid your tuition, huh?"
