There were a lot of empty seats on Tuesday night.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — If the Syracuse men’s basketball team wins a game and its fanbase isn’t around to see it, did it actually happen?
Syracuse did indeed win — the first of its kind against earn a Power Four or conference foe this season — by taking down the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on Tuesday night. The Orange did so in front of a sparse JMA Wireless Dome crowd.
Set for tip from the dome and this is, without question, the most desolate crowd I can ever remember for a men’s basketball game. pic.twitter.com/A8WhFiKJKv
— James Szuba (@JamesSzuba) January 8, 2025
Official crowd number from Tuesday night? 13,935. Although there were hardly that many people in the dome. Crowd size announced at Syracuse goes by total tickets sold, not necessarily people in seats.
That’s fewer people than the crowd of 14,318 that was announced for the Cornell game on November 27. Tickets for the Georgia Tech game were selling for as low as a dollar in the 300s section on the secondary market. Despite the lack of crowd size, Syracuse head coach Adrian Autry would thank those who did show up.
“I want to thank the fans that came out tonight. It meant a lot to this team to have people in the building. It’s been a lot of noise in a tough period of time. I just want to thank the fans that came out tonight for our team,” Autry said.
It was a snowy night in Syracuse with the temperature about as low as the Orange’s three-point shooting percentage (20%), but that never stopped fans from showing up in droves when Syracuse basketball was nationally ranked with NCAA Tournament aspirations. These days, that’s not the case. Even Syracuse’s longtime, most passionate fans are checking out due to the lack of recent success.
Yes, the Syracuse students are still on break and a middling Georgia Tech team certainly isn’t a major draw, but as Syracuse sits with an under-.500 record, one has to wonder: how many fans will show up for the Duke game on February 5? Thought to be a big game coming into the season, North Carolina is just 10-6. Will that Saturday game on February 15 do numbers attendance wise?
For a program with 86 crowds all-time of 30,000 or more, Syracuse will unlikely clear that bar this season. The new chairback seating installed in the dome last summer was a departure from the metal bleachers. As such, capacity for men’s basketball has been revised down to 30,219.
Syracuse historically ranks No. 1 or No. 2 in college basketball attendance each year. The Orange most recently won the attendance crown in 2022 with an average crowd of 20,017.