LEXINGTON, Ky. _ It took exactly three games in the downsized Rupp Arena to answer a pressing Kentucky Wildcats basketball question:
No, it turns out, removing 3,000 from the total Rupp seating capacity has not led to a return of the golden days when the Wildcats played in front of precious few empty seats in their home venue.
If you were following Kentucky's 82-74 escape against Utah Valley on Monday night via Twitter, one of the prevailing themes involved people tweeting images of fairly vast expanses of empty seats at Rupp.
The announced attendance _ UK crowd numbers reflect "tickets distributed" _ for the game was 18,859. That was some 1,686 below the new Rupp Arena basketball capacity of 20,545.
Going into a weekend in which Kentucky will play twice at Rupp, against Mount St. Mary's on Friday night and vs. Lamar on Sunday evening, the Wildcats have yet to sell out a regular-season home game.
The announced attendance for the home opener against Eastern Kentucky was 20,163. It was 19,101 for Evansville's stunning upset of John Calipari's Cats in game two.
Let's stipulate that 99.8% of men's college basketball programs would kill for those kinds of crowd sizes.
Kentucky backers, however, had historically taken pride in how Rupp Arena was generally full to watch the Cats regardless of the quality of opponent. That's why it remains jarring to realize that era in Wildcats basketball history seems to have passed.
For all the attention directed at the quality of opponent _ or the lack thereof _ on UK's non-league home schedule, the attendance numbers from the past three Kentucky basketball seasons suggest that two other factors are major reasons why Rupp is no longer always full for the Wildcats.
1.) The games now start way before it "feels like basketball season."
In Dan Issel's senior year at Kentucky, 1969-70, the Wildcats began their season on Dec. 1. For Joe B. Hall's 1977-78 NCAA championship team, UK began its regular season on Nov. 26.
This year, UK's first home game was Nov. 8. Last year, it was Nov. 9. Two seasons ago, the Cats began on Nov. 10. In each of those three seasons, Kentucky has had six regular-season home games scheduled in November.
In 2017-18, the six November home games averaged 20,092 in a 23,000-seat Rupp Arena.
Last season, the six November home games averaged 19,699.
This year, the first three home games have averaged 19,374 in the 20,545-seat Rupp.
2.) The lack of Saturday home games in November suppresses attendance.
Two things unite the November home games from the past three UK schedules. One, it is a steady diet of mid-majors and low-majors.
The second is that none of the November Kentucky home games are ever played on Saturday.
During the college football regular season, there is no way to clear a Saturday telecast of men's basketball on the SEC Network or other ESPN platforms.
So the UK basketball games bounce around the weekly calendar looking for a telecast window.
The EKU game was on Friday night; Evansville was on a Tuesday; and Utah Valley a Monday. Mount St. Mary's will be another Friday tip, while Lamar is Sunday and UAB (Nov. 29) will be a Friday game, too.
This matters because Saturday games draw better regardless of opponent.
In 2017-18, UK's average attendance for its five Saturday home games was 23,253. Last year, the Cats averaged 23,288 for seven home, Saturday dates.
The foes in Kentucky's Saturday home games, obviously, tend to carry far more prestige than the November opponents. Still, regardless of strength of opposition, playing on the day of the week most convenient to the majority of your fan base helps put people in seats.
Part of what has seemed disorienting at Kentucky home games in November these past three seasons is that what your eyes see doesn't always conform with the official crowd sizes.
Last season, UK's announced average attendance for its first three home games was 19,680. The Rupp Arena turnstile average (which the Herald-Leader's Jerry Tipton acquired via an open-records request) for those same three games was 13,107.
So far this year, I don't ever remember seeing as many empty seats in the lower arena for Wildcats games as there have been.
UK announced on Oct. 28 that the available season tickets, separate from the student allotment, for 2019-20 were a complete sellout.
That means those vacant seats in Rupp Arena's lower levels have reflected people who paid good money for tickets _ plus the "donations" that UK requires to purchase good seats _ yet nevertheless:
1.) chose not to use them;
2.) couldn't get anyone else to use their lower-arena, UK basketball tickets, either.
The world, as they say, it is a-changing
