Collegiate Times

“We can’t change the building,” Medley said.

Boggs, sister of freshman guard Ben Boggs, said that based on her experiences as a high school basketball player as well as conversations with the men’s and women’s teams at Tech, student attendance at games is crucial.

“More students really make the game,” she said. “(Men’s basketball head coach Seth) Greenberg is a proponent of packing the stadium with students. Alumni are great and they support the program, but students are the key.”

DiGiacomo said many students are not utilizing the stand-by pass system as effectively as he would like.

“If we see 30 or 50 empty seats, we let students in,” he said. “(Stand-by seating) is in place and it’s been in place.”

Smith said stand-by seating works for students who truly want to attend games.

“If they were a true, avid fan, they would use it,” he said. “We’ve let people in at every game.”

Smith said nearly every two or four years, there is a push from the student body to change the current system. However, he said, he has heard nearly every proposal because of the amount of time that he has worked in athletics.

Smith feels that although no solution is every perfect for every student, the current lottery works well for the majority.

“We treat our students as good as we treat our highest donors,” he said.

He also said many other schools in the ACC look to Tech as an example of a lottery system that generally works.

Smith said that the SGA has not recently contacted the athletics department to discuss possibly changing the current system.

Carroll, however, said he is trying to work toward a better solution.

“The entire student body should work on ways to work with the SGA to figure out an optimal solution,” Carroll said.

DiGiacomo said that although there is currently not a strong push within the athletics department to change the way students receive tickets through the lottery, there is always a possibility for change.

“They’re always willing to tweak it,” he said.

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