John Blanchette: Tuesday night lacked NIT-pickers

I‘m not sure when a basketball crowd of 6,841 in Spokane became a disappointment, but it was Tuesday night.

Gonzaga was playing. The game was at the Arena downtown and not the Zags’ members-only clubhouse. It was even a tournament, so there was actually something on the line. And there was nothing in the way of competing amusements, unless you count “Dancing with the Stars” – which, alas, some thinking people actually do.

And 6,841 showed up.

There may not be another locale where this even matters – never mind inspires any hand-wringing – and certainly not on a weekday evening in mid-November, when most of the country doesn’t know that college basketball season has even started yet.

But, of course, Gonzaga basketball has come to matter a great deal to Spokane in the last 10 years – at least more than it seemed Tuesday night, when the Arena looked like one of those early election night maps with scattered precincts reporting.

The Bulldogs were part of the NIT Season Tip-Off at the Spokane Arena along with Rice, Baylor and Colorado State – “part of” being the operative phrase. Gonzaga wasn’t the host institution, the promoter, the instigator, the responsible party – nothing more than a participant, though certainly the main attraction.

But not everyone got the memo.

Don’t get me wrong – 6,841 is a decent quorum. It’s a damn sight better than the 3,186 the NIT put into Nashville Arena on Monday night with Tennessee in the foursome. It compares favorably to the 8,037 that filed into Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis that same evening to watch another NIT pod that included three “home” teams – Butler, Indiana and Notre Dame.

But it’s not, well, 11,602.

That’s the average attendance the last five times the Bulldogs have played downtown.

It’s significant because the Zags, the last three seasons anyway, have played just a game a year in the Arena. Which means there’s one opportunity for those who aren’t among the 4,200 season ticket holders at GU’s perpetually sold-out McCarthey Athletic Center and don’t have access to student or staff seats – the people the Zags’ TV package was designed for – to see their faves live.

And so they pack the place.

This year, there are three such chances – the two NIT games Tuesday and tonight, and a Feb. 17 date against Memphis. That’s why the Zags’ game against Eastern Washington was shifted back into McCarthey this season – GU can’t play more than three times in the Arena and still have any chance of being allowed a spot in the NCAA first-round pod the building will host in March, should the Zags manage to play themselves into such an position.

Is that why the joint didn’t fill Tuesday night? And does it matter so much?

Yes. No. Maybe.

The preseason NIT is a mixed blessing of odd timing – in the middle of football season on a school night – and converging bureaucracies, with ticket prices that are, well, an indulgence. Yes, the upper deckers got two games for their 25 bucks and the Baylor-CSU double-overtimer was a dandy, but nobody was paying for that.

More of an issue is figuring out who’s in charge.

Until this year, the NIT started at campus sites, and Gonzaga had agreed to host a first-round game at McCarthey. Then the NIT settled its legal skirmish with the NCAA, which assumed control of the operation and came up with this four-pod setup and semineutral sites – and neutral hosts. In this case, Washington State is the host school.

Except it has no financial stake in the event – it doesn’t share any profits.

And Gonzaga, which does as one of 16 shareholders, isn’t allowed to sell ads or promote the games.

That left the advertising up to the Arena and the NCAA, and if you didn’t hear much in the way of plugs, there may have been a reason.

“I just don’t think there’s been an opportunity for it to be advertised properly by the NIT/NCAA folks,” said Gonzaga athletic director Mike Roth. “Because up until last Tuesday, you couldn’t get air time because of the election advertising. It wasn’t easy to get the word out.”

Well, that may be the case, but election day wasn’t just penciled in last month. If the NCAA isn’t going to let the local teams participate in the promotion, then it had better be a bit more inventive itself.

But even some of the clued in fans weren’t necessarily buying. With all teams offered the opportunity to buy a quarter of the house, GU picked up some extra tickets when the other three schools turned most of theirs back.

And then GU turned some back – reportedly as many as 1,000.

“We didn’t get 100 percent response (from our season-ticket holders),” Roth acknowledged, “which is a little surprising. But they’re not cheap tickets.”

The good news for GU was that the 6,841 who did show up – including students exiled to the west end zone – weren’t all opera-goers, though the Zags’ hot start helped them get into it.

“I’m just hoping people aren’t starting to assume that they can’t get a ticket,” Roth said, “that it’s always sold out. These Arena games are a way we can reach out to people.”

But on this one night, anyway, too many went unreached.