Better Home Court? | The Boneyard

Better Home Court?

The Civic Center always seemed louder back in the day, but I don't get to enough games to judge anymore. Civic Center seems louder on TV. Gampel's shape and spacious dome work against it.
 
I don't know about which home court has been better but we have a negative home court advantage this year.

This is from teamrankings.com

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These are the ratings for SJU. They are a good road team. If our guys don't get up for this game....
 
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IMO Hartford is more accessible to non-student fans then Storrs.

Not to be that guy but I live in southwest CT and Hartford is about a 45 minute drive compared to about 80 minute drive to Storrs. It doesn't sound like much but it most definitely deters me especially on a weeknight.

I imagine I am not alone on this front.
 
Gampel is a special place. When I was a student in the mid late 90s, Gampel was by far the loudest and most intense place for visitors to come to. It took a special performance (see Kittles and Villanova in 1995) for the other school to win. I remember games against Syracuse in the 1994-1995 season, Stanford in 1997-1998 and the game against Michigan State in the 1998-1999 season as special atmospheres that can only happen at Gampel. Gampel set us an apart and it’s a shame the atmosphere is nothing like the 90s or early 00s. Obviously, ticket inflation has a lot to do with it but if I had my choice Gampel over HCC all day/week.
 
If you flip a coin 3 times and it comes up heads every time, does that mean the 4th time will be heads?
 
TroyHall98 said:
Gampel is a special place. When I was a student in the mid late 90s, Gampel was by far the loudest and most intense place for visitors to come to. It took a special performance (see Kittles and Villanova in 1995) for the other school to win. I remember games against Syracuse in the 1994-1995 season, Stanford in 1997-1998 and the game against Michigan State in the 1998-1999 season as special atmospheres that can only happen at Gampel. Gampel set us an apart and it’s a shame the atmosphere is nothing like the 90s or early 00s. Obviously, ticket inflation has a lot to do with it but if I had my choice Gampel over HCC all day/week.
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I don't know which location I would take over the other as this seems like an eternal debate. However, Gampel in the 1990s and early 2000s was loud and raucous and fantastic. My wife who is from California only started going to UConn games with me since 2011 where the first game was against Syracuse with the ESPN anchors there. She always asks me "what is up with this crowd?". She is right. When I watch other teams' home games, their fans are loud. UConn home games are like a library compared to other teams' home crowds.

I noticed the issue with our fans in Maui, too. It's not an old age thing, either. Dayton has plenty of old fans, and they were loud and stood the entirety of all 3 games.

UConn deserves better fan involvement at their home games and they need the fans to be like the fans in the Villanova game in 2022 where Hurley got ejected. Those fans intimidated and influenced the officials and got every 50-50 call to go in UConn's favor after Hurley's ejection.
 
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Can Hartford get louder than Gampel? Yes. Will it? Let’s see tonight.

Also, we haven’t lost in Hartford in a long, long time.
 
Living in New York not far from the Berkshires, I always get my season tickets to Hartford because it’s that much closer especially weeknight games. However, I always go back to campus for a couple games a year because my family still lives so close. Lately I feel like Hartford has been a bit better. I’ll be on my way around 3:30 today and I’ll certainly be bringing the energy. Half price happy hour starts at 530.
 
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TroyHall98 said:
Gampel is a special place.
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Heh. It's UConn that's special, not Gampel. We took the road trip to Virginia for a game the year before Gampel opened. My first impression of Gampel was that it was just like Virginia's building. That same year, Virginia announce they were building a new arena because the old one was deemed obsolete. That tells the story, imo. Gampel was obsolete from the start.
 
This year, it absolutely flipped to Hartford being better. Partly because the scheduled is more balanced but I think the school did a number to the energy at Gampel with the number of empty or corporate seats in the lower bowl. It doesn't seem as dramatic of a change at the PEEP. Also my section in tier 2 refuses to stand when we need to at Gampel. Has not been a problem in Hartford. I think the more hardcore UConn lives in the Central to Western CT area.
 
MadMax1999 said:
This year, it absolutely flipped to Hartford being better. Partly because the scheduled is more balanced but I think the school did a number to the energy at Gampel with the number of empty or corporate seats in the lower bowl. It doesn't seem as dramatic of a change at the PEEP. Also my section in tier 2 refuses to stand when we need to at Gampel. Has not been a problem in Hartford. I think the more hardcore UConn lives in the Central to Western CT area.
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I remember when Gampel was just finished in 1990, they were including this as part of the UConn student tours to prospective students. It looked nice and new back then. But that was a long time ago ....
 
I was in Gampel on opening day. The civic center has never been that loud. Gampel isn't the problem. Money is the problem.

And I don't think either location is the reason for our pathetic home court disadvantage this year. I doubt anyone knows the reason but we can speculate. For example, too much partying the night before home games? And if that is true, we would see it more for games at Gampel.
 
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Maybe we can stop having this same discussion over and over and over for a while? Or are there some who don’t want to believe their own eyes? One can theorize reasons why Gampel is quieter until the cows come home, but the crowd last night spoke for itself.

And a special shout out to the student section, who put their cell phones down for two hours and got into the game.
 
I was there on opening night vs St John’s with friends. Had never been up to the campus before. Did not know where to park. Found a place then went in. Was in Augh. Great atmosphere. Fun and loud. Way better than going to see them play at the New Haven Coliseum.

Has Gampel out grown itself? That is a very good question. The place is smaller than the Hartford Civic Center. But you are closer to the action. And, that makes it for a more entertaining game to be a part of. Even though getting to Hartford is way easier if a location you still can not beat the atmosphere of being at GP.
 
That was a riled up crowd. An angry crowd who wanted the team to stuff Pitino over a table and give him a spanking. I wanna say 75% of the crowd stood the entire game. Very impressive and a fantastic showing.

A few media outlets praised that as one of the better home courts in the land.
 
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