3. All Crowds Love The Same Things
Even for a great venue like the Dean E Smith Center, with wonderful fans, this was rough situation for crowd energy. Wednesday night against a bad team with no history (they had only played once, a Cal win in 1998), and a quick lead for the home team that never again got lower than six. It's a recipe for some mild cheering throughout, unless there is the type of Earth shattering dunk that North Carolina's rivals up the road seem to have every game now.
But two things got a everybody riled up. An airball by Rytis Petraitis on a foul throw, of course came with the jeers for the remainder of the game, and when he missed the rim again, well it triggered five seconds of pure crowd delirium. But, the most excited moment of the game came right after the initial airball, when Petraitis hit the front of the rim on his next free throw attempt. And since those two misses came in the second half, everyone in attendance gets to enjoy a free Crumbl cookie tomorrow. For those unfamiliar, that's an approximate seven dollar savings on the fanciest, most overdone cookie you've ever seen. They're quite good, but the price is non-sensical. So all-in-all, a great deal.
But it reminds us of lesson one for every gameday operations person in every sport across this country. Get a promotion where the fans receive free food if a certain opponent failure occurs. It's guaranteed to create a frenzy every time. Hell, it might be the only thing in the country we can still unanimously all enjoy.