Crowds limping into Reed Arena these days

Mark Turgeon should have been wearing a smile you could see from Navasota. He just became Texas A&M's second winningest men's basketball coach with a 71-66 victory over Iowa State, which also made him the first coach to have four straight 20-win seasons.

Turgeon, though, wore the face of a ticket holder at the Super Bowl, one of those 400 without a seat.

Turgeon was upset his team didn't play better. Sure, Iowa State is better than its 1-10 Big 12 record, but the Cyclones lost their last three road games by an average of 27.3 points and that included games at Colorado and Missouri -- teams that A&M beat. ISU is not a good team. ISU used only seven players, four of them freshmen. Supposedly, ISU's scout team which is loaded with transfers sitting out this season is much better than the real squad in practice.

Yet the Aggies found themselves in a one-possession game with 3 minutes, 17 seconds left.

To A&M's credit, it found a way to win. It wasn't pretty and maybe it wasn't entertaining, but the 21st-ranked team in the country took care of business and remained third in one of the best conferences in the country.

So why were there only 4,800 fans there? The announced crowd of 7,041 includes all tickets sold, but fans cleared stayed away in droves for this one. Even on Military Appreciation Night with all veterans or active duty military personnel getting two free tickets with the ability buy more at $10 couldn't bring the folks out to a school with a rich military history.

The student turnout hurt most. The locals have done well in recent years, but it's the students who have been coming up short. Aggies always talk about supporting Aggies. Does that include basketball for two ranked teams? A&M women's coach Gary Blair has been working the students for eight seasons to help them find their way to Reed Arena. What's A&M's enrollment? More than 50,000? And it can fill the place for only big men's games and the Baylor women?

A good crowd is worth 10 points for the hosts. Wednesday night's crowd was worth maybe one 3-pointer, which was 10 less than ISU hit.

"We're 17th in the country," Turgeon said, referring to the coaches' poll when someone asked him if a larger crowd would have helped. "You write what you want."

He slapped his hand on the table and walked out. The interview was over. His mini-tirade wasn't in the same league as Bobby Knight's or former A&M head coach Billy Gillispie's, but it was effective because Turgeon is so mild-mannered and typically answers every question.

So don't accuse Turgeon of sour grapes. He spent much of the postgame press conference bemoaning the play of his own team.

This is the fourth straight home game the Aggies have performed at best average. They were lucky to beat Kansas State, then lost to Texas and Baylor.

"We're not playing with the type of toughness we want to be successful," he said. "But it's a good win for us, especially this time of year."

Fans need to remember that even with that so-so effort against ISU, the Aggies will remain a No. 6 seed in the projected 68-team NCAA tournament bracket of ESPN's Joe Lunardi. A&M is having a solid season -- again.

There's many schools that would die for a 20-5 team on the verge of a seventh straight NCAA tournament appearance. Roll out the basketball against No-Name University and they'll have 10,000 crazy fans waving signs -- even if it's not on TV, just glad to be at the gym, especially the students.

But that's not Bryan-College Station. Sorry, coach, winning isn't enough when locals are paying $30 a ticket. You gotta have quality entertainment, more than the peppy band Hullabaloo, an overhead scoreboard and a good public address announcer. Turgeon's team has to play better, much better than it has. As for the students, heck, I don't know how to get them to come out. You can't have the football team at every game.

Nathan Walkup gave the fans something to cheer about with a couple dunks and 3-pointers, but the team's 5-of-19 effort from 3-point range led to more moans than cheers.

Unfortunately, first-time fans to Wednesday's game probably won't be on the internet Thursday morning buying tickets to A&M's last two home games. Other than the win, this team wasn't impressive.

The trademark of this team is great defense, but it had only six steals. A&M also is a good rebounding team, but ISU had a 33-32 edge. ISU also hit 11 of 22 3-pointers. Can you imagine how ISU's Hilton Coliseum would have been rocking had this game been there? Maybe A&M loses.

But A&M won. And if A&M wins at Oklahoma State on Saturday night, maybe the crowd will be better next week against Oklahoma. And if the crowd's better, maybe the Aggies play better.

Robert Cessna's e-mail address is robert.cessna@theeagle.com.