I don’t, in this post’s title, refer to their basketball team, which is quite talented and clearly has SU dominated this year. I give the team all the credit in the world for the whooping they laid down on the Orange. It was painful to watch, especially in person, helpless in the upper deck. I offer them my full congratulations on their Big East regular-season title.

But their fans… whoo boy. The fans are terrible, still.

Let’s overlook the court-storming. Though it was kind of lame, I can forgive it considering the historical circumstances of the game, plus the fact that the win clinched the league title for them. They get a pass on that. No, I am referring to the sub-standard attendance by Hoya fans at Saturday’s game.

“But Josh - they set an attendance record! The place was sold out! It was their best crowd ever! Aren’t body washes for ladies? What’s with this thingy?”

First of all, the student section. I noted the phenomenon two years ago that the Syracuse game to which Georgetown refused to release any tickets for general public sales was listed as “sold out” but that there were nevertheless plenty of empty rows in the student section. Well, it happened again.

Here’s the seating chart:

The school reserves, for its students, all the sections in black, including 424-427 in the upper deck. I had a great view of those four sections, and the last 8 rows or so were completely empty. Completely. And many of the rows in that area were merely half-full, as people spread out to give themselves some personal space. I don’t know how they ‘officially’ exceeded the arena’s seating capacity for this game yet still had several hundred seats unoccupied. Even though Patrick Ewing is now fat enough to count as three people, that still doesn’t get you all the way there.

Seriously, kids. You go to Georgetown. You (supposedly) love Hoya basketball. If you are a current student, this is the most significant regular-season game you’ll ever have on your schedule. EVER. Nothing in the recent past, or in the next few years, will hold a candle to this sporting event. With everything that was on the line — the history, the rivalry, Otto Porter’s last game (most likely), first place — even the most casual student fan should have had this one circled on their calendar since September. And yet: hundreds of empty seats. You are pathetic. A sorry excuse for a fan base. There is no way to spin this. You are the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked.

On the flip side of this, once again major credit must go out to the Orange empire. You probably couldn’t tell on TV, because we had so few reasons to be loud, but there were a ton of Syracuse fans in the upper deck of the arena. Our section (431, on the corner) seemed to be split 50/50. Looking around, there were large swaths of orange clothing visible throughout the stands. There were numerous pro-SU chants bubbling through, at least early on, and a few small orange beach balls bouncing around with Hoya-hating propaganda scrawled onto them. To put it plainly, we were out in force. Conservatively, I’d estimate that more than 1/3 of the upper deck was Syracuse fans, most of whom probably had to spend lavishly to get their tickets, one way or another. Many of them were undoubtedly purchased secondhand from Georgetown fans who sold their chance to witness history just to make a buck. (More patheticness from the Hoya “faithful”.) My crew spent around $100 each for our tickets, since we had to purchase tickets to four other games for the privilege of getting Syracuse tickets. Hell, one of our number flew to DC from Colorado just for this game. But it was worth it to us.

Apparently it was not worth it to actual Georgetown fans. And that is why it’s two days later, and Georgetown still sucks.