Pauley Pavilion on the campus of UCLA was voted one of the toughest college arenas to play, according to a poll on EA Sports. And a spokesman for the company indicated that yes, the poll was serious. EA Sports conducted the poll to use in its upcoming NCAA basketball game.UCLA made the cut of 15 in the poll made up of college basketball fans who have obviously never been to a game at Pauley Pavilion. Because those of us who have been to there would know that is just not the case. In fact, UCLA might have the most forgiving home courts for a big-time college basketball program. Ever.
That isn't a knock on the UCLA students. Well, maybe a little. But Pauley Pavilion is not designed to give the Bruins a huge home-court advantage. Coach John Wooden didn't want it that way. Wooden didn't believe it was sporting to make the opposing team uncomfortable because of the fans. Call him the anti-Red Auerbach.
Because of this, the end zone seats at Pauley Pavilion are pushed way back. And even then, the student section seems pushed away, too. You can barely see (or hear) them from your television screen.
UCLA's fans have never been known to be rabid or anything like that. They are getting a little better in recent years as it's obvious that the students have been watching a lot of ESPN and are copying other teams. But the UCLA fans have been rather soft for years.
If you wanted to see a motivated, innovative and rabid fan base, you have to take a trip in time to the campus of UC Santa Barbara in the 1980s and early 1990s. Even former UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian is talking about those fans all of these years later.
The noisiest place, for sure, was Santa Barbara. The Thunderdome. Danny says that one game at Cal State Fullerton, right before we went to West Virginia in 1983, was the noisiest.And for the record, that was a legal court storming, before all of the stupid BCS schools made it uncool.
But plenty of players say Santa Barbara. I think so, too. They had all college students there. No big boosters. You couldn't even hear in there. They'd sleep outside overnight and were half-loaded by the time the game started.
All students. Almost no older people. They were crazy. We played there 10 times and they only beat us twice.
They beat us the season we won the national championship. I remember how everyone stormed the court. They were going nuts.
We were 24-4 and had won 10 consecutive games. Then the Gauchos beat us, 78-70.
The only other time they beat us on their own court was in 1988. We lost, 71-66. We were 20-1 before that game.
But the Thunderdome is built for rabid fans. The Thunderdome was nothing more than a high school gym on steroids, with fans practically spilling out on the floor. As somebody who witnessed some of those great games in person, it was probably the most enjoyable college basketball atmosphere -- when your team won because those students were on your team the moment they stepped on the floor for warmups. There was probably no greater home-court advantage.
Or was there? How many NCAA titles did UCLA win compared to UCSB? Maybe Wooden knew what he was doing. Maybe the thing that makes a place tough to play isn't the fans in the stands, but the guys on the court. In that case, maybe EA Sports pollsters got it right.
