[NCAA Tournament]: Ticket drought leaves Bruins dry

After winning the Pac-10 Conference and receiving a No. 2 seed
in the Oakland Regional, UCLA basketball has made its tickets a hot
commodity once again.

Fans looking for tickets to Thursday’s first-round game
against Belmont and a potential second-round game have found them
hard to come by.

According to Central Ticket Office Director David Lowenstein,
each school placed in the San Diego subregional received a 550
ticket allotment for its session for the first round.

Cox Arena, located on the campus of San Diego State, is playing
host for the first round and its capacity of 12,500 seats is
completely sold out. The main avenue for fans to obtain tickets is
through each school’s ticketing office.

This small number of tickets have left demand far exceeding
supply. And fans aren’t the only ones who have noticed how
difficult it is to get tickets.

“It’s two hours away, but there’s not enough
tickets,” UCLA coach Ben Howland said. “Hopefully we
can win that first game. Then you’ll have half the field
heading home and tickets will become available, and it will become
more Bruin Den.”

Due to the structure of the academic quarter system, UCLA
students have to contend with final exams amid the biggest Bruin
sporting event in recent memory. Fans are searching for creative
ways to watch their team play in the NCAA Tournament while not
missing class.

“I’m going to drive down [to San Diego] directly
after my final that ends at 12:15 (on Thursday),” first-year
undeclared major Lindsay Steele said.

“I’m going to go outside of Cox Arena on Saturday
and try and find tickets,” fourth-year chemical engineering
student Yasser Attiga said. “It sucks a lot that I
can’t go on Thursday. There are so few tickets for
students.”

Tickets for alumni were restricted to only the two highest
levels of donors. Members of the Grant-in-Aid Scholarship donors
and of the Coaches Roundtable were notified by e-mail of their
chance to purchase tickets Sunday night. Alumni wanting to buy
tickets had to be basketball season ticket holders.

After all these groups obtained passes to UCLA’s
first-round tilt with Belmont, few precious tickets were left to
students. Each UCLA student applying for tickets must have been a
Student Sports Package season ticket holder to be considered.

Originally only 35 Bruins were selected through a lottery for
tickets to Thursday and a potential second-round game on Saturday.
Approximately 260 ticket applications were given out to students on
Monday, but only 128 were returned.

Lowenstein stated, however, that UCLA was able to receive
additional tickets from another school so that all 128 students who
applied received tickets for Thursday’s game against Belmont.
However, these students were not guaranteed for tickets to
Saturday’s second round, and must call CTO on Friday to see
if extra tickets were made available.

The scarcity of tickets to tournament games has left many Bruin
fans worried about not being able to watch their team in
person.

“I was really happy to learn that everyone got tickets for
Thursday,” said senior economics student Matt Robbins.
“I’m still hoping I can get tickets for Friday, and
I’ll definitely try eBay or Stub Hub if I don’t get one
(on Friday).”

Robbins and other Bruin fans will have to worry once again next
week if UCLA is able to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. If the Bruins
are able to win two games this weekend, they would then travel to
the regional final site in Oakland.

Oakland Arena, just like Cox Arena, is already sold out.

If the Bruins were to advance to the Sweet 16 in Oakland, UCLA
fans would be allotted more than the 550 tickets they received for
the first round, and students would have to reapply for tickets
starting Monday.

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