Bradley University Men’s Basketball

Going to the Bradley Basketball games is quite fun! As a member of the band, I get to stand right behind one of the baskets while playing my instrument, so it is up close. The team is quite good at home, too, boasting a 271 – 85 record between 1982 and 2007.
If you can only go to one of the games, go to either the Illinois State game (the rivalry between those two schools is called the «War On 74»), any of the non-​conference games against the top teams, or any post-​season NIT or CBI games. Michigan State came this past year, and people were standing on their feet for most of the game, making a ton of noise. Even though we still lost (66 – 61), it was still fun. Butler (a top 25 team) is coming to Carver in the 2008 – 2009 season since we played there last year, and it should be loud during that game, too! Of course, the CBI games this year and the NIT games last year had very energized crowds.
The only thing that makes this a 4-​star and not a 5-​star entertainment option are the crowd-​quieting promotions that occur during the timeouts. Seriously, we don’t need to see two people in the upper bowl get escorted to courtside seats, or see someone answering a trivia question for a $ 15 dry cleaning certificate during EVERY GAME. Granted, there have been worse promotions (including the Par-​A-​Dice dice throwing promotion, where people threw six big oversized dice on the court for a chance spell «B-​R-​A-​V-​E-​S» and win prizes) and the basketball-​related promotions are decent, but most of them are only there so Bradley can charge less money for the seats. The only promotion that actually got the crowd active was the longball competition, and that occurred during most of the women’s basketball games and only one of the men’s basketball games.
P. S. I marked this under «Professional Sports Teams» because there is no option for «College/​University Sports Teams».