Glenmillerville

• TWEET
• SHARE
• SHARE

Get those tents ready. Duke's Krzyzewskivilles, if only for one day, are coming to Penn.

The athletic department announced that for the Saturday, Jan. 27 basketball game against St. Joseph's, student tickets are general admission. Students will have their run of sections 120 and 220 (lower and upper level behind the basket closer to Penn's bench) on a first-come, first-row basis.

At Duke, students set up tents early in the season and never really leave, sleeping in K-Ville for days at a time. And while I can't say I expect anybody to start waiting out at the Palestra on Christmas Eve, I hope that showing up two hours early won't get anybody a front-row seat.

The St. Joe's game, while not the biggest rivalry, is the best fan experience with students from each side taking a whole end of the Palestra and shouting at each other from across the court. So I'll be out of Friday night dinner at Hillel around 8 p.m. the night before. Hope to see a lot of you outside the Palestra that night.

The decision to implement this policy for a day was described as experimental. If it works, we could see the end of The Line as we know it and the establishment of a far-superior method of ticket distribution.

Last year, and in every year previous, the bottom of the student section was empty at tip-off inspiring plenty of "you have no fans" chants from the punctual folks from Hawk Hill and others.

Students only had to show some initiative on one night of the year to guarantee themselves a good seat for 15.

Under the new procedure, fans would be forced to show up on time or sit in the rafters. The team would be introduced to the cheers of five or 10 people from the student section. Also, it would give the more dedicated fans the better seats.

So here's hoping that the experiment is a success and future Red and Blue Crews are forced to show more dedication than just taking a taxi to the Line location.

Finally, a clarification regarding Ibrahim Jaaber's "new" tattoo. David Bernstein, who interviewed Jaaber for a feature in the upcoming DP basketball supplement, told me that the tattoo isn't new at all.

He's had it since his sophomore year, but for the first time in my memory, Jaaber went without his trademark tee-shirt in Wednesday's scrimmage.