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Well I guess it should come to no surprise that the Wolverines have sold out of their allotment of season tickets for the upcoming 2014-15 basketball season. Michigan is coming off of a regular season Big Ten title and has only lost four games in the Crisler Center over their last 49 games.
This isn't a surprise, as the university also sold out of their season tickets last season, but it was a bit surprising to see the somewhat lukewarm nature from the students. Michigan, which allots 3000 tickets for it's student section, has 3250 student season ticket holders, a decline of a 9.72% from last seasons 3600 mark.
Interestingly enough the number of student season tickets dropped even though Michigan had made changes to it's claim process, making things more lenient and with less restrictions this year.
That being said, I wouldn't read that much into it. The reality is that even some bigger programs will have issues drawing people to less appealing matchups and the season ticket sales and recent increase in overall ticket sales are all positive signs. The end result is we'll still see a packed house pretty much every night in Ann Arbor so all is well, especially when in comparison to the football program.
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On a different note, Big Ten frontrunner Wisconsin got off to a strong start on Wednesday, demolishing UW-Parkside 77-40 in their exhibition game. While it's an exhibition game with suspect talent levels (Parkside was 4 of 12 from the line and shot 12% in the second half), it was still a well oiled machine in Madison. Frank Kaminsky led the way with 19 points and 11 rebounds in only 22 minutes.
The Badgers were without key bench player Duje Dukan, though, with the forward being held out of the closed scrimmage, Wednesday's exhibition and the first two games of the season. The move was in order for Dukan to maintain a year of eligibility as he had participated in a scrimmage and exhibition in 2012-13 before sitting out the season. His participation burned his potential for a redshirt outside of a medical hardship waiver, which he did not qualify for.
The news hasn't gone over particularly well, with many people taking aim at the NCAA over the rule and punishment of Dukan. Personally, while some people have slightly twisted the suspension just a bit (sorry Zach, but he's only missing two regular season games so claiming he's missing 10% of his senior season is a bit of a lie), I'm not sure why he simply wasn't held out of the scrimmage and exhibition this year instead. That was all he participated in back in 2012-13 before missing the season thanks to a case of mononucleosis, but I guess "rules are rules." At the very least Dukan will only miss the opener weekend games against Northern Kentucky and Chattanooga and will be back in time before facing in-state opponent Green Bay and heading to the Bahamas for the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament.
That being said, I'll leave you with this:
Traevon Jackson comes up with the steal and gets it ahead to Vitto Brown for the @BadgerMBB one-handed slam. http://t.co/YAFqiPjgOT
— Wisconsin on BTN (@BTN_Wisconsin) November 6, 2014