UA season basketball lottery tickets tougher to win

Due to a couple of changes in the process to sign-up for student seats, UA students will find it more difficult to be selected.

The first change is the elimination of the "A and B" seasons. Now, ticket holders are entitled to a complete nine-game package.

In previous years, all of the home games were divided into two groups, season A and season B. Each season contained six games and students were limited to buying only one season. That process was successful in enabling more students to attend games, because only 2,350 seats are available for students each game.

"The reason for the change this year is the fact that five home games will be played during the Christmas break. If we divide the rest of the games into two seasons, it doesn't balance out," ASUA President Gilbert Davidson said.

The five Christmas break games are not included because many students go home and the much-desired tickets go unused. The UA athletic department will not lose money because the unused tickets will be sold to the general public during games in which UA is out of session, a ticket office employee said.

"The students that want to buy tickets for the Christmas break games this season will be able to buy them on a game-by-game basis starting December 1st," Davidson said. "We wanted to be as fair as we could, so that as many students as possible can see all the games."

The second change this year will be the sign-up location. This year the sign-ups for the ticket lottery will return to the McKale Center ticket office location.

"The renovation of the McKale Ticket Office will allow the student ticket system to be handled better," Davidson said.

In year's past, the sign-ups were always held at the ticket office in McKale, but last year to promote the basketball season even more, the sign-ups changed to the main floor of the Memorial Student Union.

After the winning lottery numbers and alternate numbers were posted inside McKale last year and tickets went on sale, many students never came to buy the tickets. As a result, almost all of the alternate winners were allowed to buy tickets.

Included in this season's ticket package is an exhibition against the Melbourne Magic and regular season games against Morgan State, Coppin State, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State, California and Stanford.

Lottery sign-ups are accepted at McKale's main ticket office on East Enke Drive until Friday at 6 p.m. The results will be posted on the wall just east of the ticket office on Oct. 10 and student ticket sales begin Monday, Oct. 13.

The nine-game season will be sold to students for $36.

"I think it's more of a pain because now I have to go all the way over to McKale to sign up and I probably have a lesser chance to go to all the games like I did last year," Biology sophomore Josh Staley said.

Another student was confident the new system will be more beneficial for everyone.

"I think it's fair because otherwise the student seats for the Christmas break games would be wasted." Psychology sophomore Jackie Wolford said. "I will probably go to a few games because I'm sure I'll know somebody that wins tickets."