Coach Dickerson Looking for Fan Support

Head Basketball Coach Dave Dickerson was asked on how he feels the Tulane basketball program was being supported. Here is his response

Dickerson: One of my big pushes since I've been here is to try and get our students more involvded in our basketball program because I understand from a first hand basis that if you get good fan support but mostly good student support you have a chance to win game. We can get 1,500-2,0o0 students here every home game. We have over 1,500 season ticket holders already so that means we are almost sold out. When we won a national championship, we went undefeated at home that year, that was largely based on the students. You look at Memphis student support vs. our student support, its not comparable. But if you look at the opportunity for us to be a good team, and with our gym only being under 4,000 people, if we can get a lot of students in here then we have a chance to at least win our home games. If we can do that then steal some on the road, then you have a chance.
I think our administration is committed to us being a good program, but I would like to see our students come out and support us. A place like Tulane University you need everyone... you need everyone to be successful because we are such a small school and we are an academically-based school. Our student-athletes that we have, especially our basketball players, we are high-achieving in the classroom. We don't get any special passes because we are atheltes. Our team GPA is 2.9... We are doing the same thing everyone else is doing, so we are trying to make this whole thing into a family situation where they support us, we support them ,and there is no disconnects- all of us in this whole deal together.

It seems like Coach Dickerson just wants the seats to be filled up and I agree. Even though the gym is small, in a way that is an advantage because it gets much louder. Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke only holds around 4,000, and it is considered maybe the toughest place to play in the country. Every year there are crazy upsets in college basketball, and almost all happen when a talented team is on the road in a hostile environment. This is noticed the most in the ACC, where a clearly less talented team like Virginia is able to consistently beat Duke or North Carolina on their home court. Remember, these guys are college players, not professional athletes. They can get easily rattled and the fans play a big part in that. When a place gets so loud that a team can barely hear, they start to get nervous. So if Fogleman Arena could consistently get filled up, I think that would be a huge boost for Tulane's season and would make a difference in the win column.