Some thoughts on the student section:

Ever since my freshman year, students have complained about the lack of unity inside Assembly Hall and the need for a student section. Valid point as any. But at the same time, it seemed as if most just made baseless assertions, backed up by zero action. No phone calls to people of authority. No e-mails. No meetings. No nothing.\nThat all changed this year.\nSeemingly led by the charge of graduate student Scott Manning, students are being increasingly proactive about the situation. I applaud everyone for that.\nI've racked my brain trying to come up with the perfect setup for a student section inside Assembly Hall, but there aren't any easy answers.\nManning proposed the idea of first-come, first-serve seating to the athletics department this fall. That would mean that if you show up early enough to a game, you'll always be able to sit behind the basket on the south side of the stadium. Those arriving later would sit in increasingly less prime seats, starting with sections M and L on the east side of the stadium all the way up to the balcony.\nPresumably, this idea would also serve the purpose of getting the most "die-hard" Hoosier fans down on the court, making Assembly Hall a much harder place to play for opposing teams.\nAnd perhaps first-come, first-serve seating's best benefit would be getting students inside the stadium much earlier than they've been getting there all season (save for the Wisconsin game).\nThis idea also keeps the current setup of Assembly Hall intact. The opposing team's fans, IU alumni and various other important people would remain down on the court, wrapping from the west, around to the north and back down on the east side of the stadium.\nSome students don't like that. \nThey feel that students create home court advantage better than anyone else in the stadium, and thus should be afforded the luxury of sitting right on top of the court.\nHey, I agree. \nBut not so fast, everyone. Assembly Hall, in its current state, isn't set up well for a good bulk of students to sit courtside. Those walls on either side of the court create a frustrating division between "good seats" and "pretty good seats." So while this idea might work in another stadium such as Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke -- one with a ton of seats right on top of the court that both alumni and students can split -- it wouldn't work so well in Assembly Hall.\nAnd where do those with courtside seats move? It probably would come at the expense of student seats in sections M and L, not to mention it might peeve off other alumni who also have to move farther back. \nSince the football program doesn't make as much money as most, basketball is the cash cow here at IU. Like it or not, alumni down on the court are sort of the priority as far as seating in the stadium goes. So I don't know if students getting some of those seats is even a foreseeable option.\nAnd don't forget, students are a lucky lot. Assembly Hall affords us more than 7,000 seats, tops in the Big Ten.\nEven if first-come, first-serve seating -- or some other unifying plan -- is implemented, plenty of students won't agree with the change. Maybe they don't like student seats being cut, or maybe they have class that gets out around game time on week nights and would always have to sit far away.\nEither way, no one is out to get the students. It's a delicate situation, one that the athletics department is looking into.\nIt's like one of those multiple-choice tests your professor likes to make more difficult than it should be: "Answers A, B, C and D are all viable, correct solutions. But among those four, one of them is the best answer." With any luck, the athletic department is working toward that.\nSo everyone, take a deep breath and relax. The wheels are in motion for something. Kelvin Sampson plans to weigh in on the subject after the season and said earlier this season that students down on the floor create an advantage.\nFor now, do as you've been doing. Propose white-outs, red-outs and Sampson-outs on Facebook. \nIt's worked. IU is in the midst of its longest home winning streak since the early 1990s. \nAnd at the end of the day, no matter how much smoke is blown about student seating, the Hoosiers' winning is all that matters, isn't it?