Ford says OSU could use a hand (and some loud voices)

Gallagher-Iba Arena has been decidedly sparse in OSU’s first two games, and after Monday’s win over North Texas Travis Ford dropped a not-so subtle hint that the Cowboys could use some fans Thursday against Tulsa.

“We need to pack this place out and make it a great college game,” Ford said. “Not just because we need to try to win but we need this Gallagher-Iba to be the Gallagher-Iba we all think of it to be. We need to get our students in here and we need to get them excited because this is a very good Tulsa basketball team.”

Tickets scanned in GIA haven’t reached 6,000 yet, and OSU has only sold 1,600 of its 3,600 available student tickets. The arena got loud a couple times on Monday — James Anderson’s reverse alley oop dunk comes to mind, as does every time Keiton Page shoots the ball — but by and large it was pretty quiet.

For a story I wrote last week about student tickets I spoke with a sophomore who said, kind of wistfully, that she heard Gallagher-Iba could be really, really loud when it was full. But she’s never seen it. Neither, for that matter, has Travis Ford. Wonder if it’ll get close tomorrow night.

by andrea cohen