Pitt students have two new reasons to be bitter this holiday season.

Reason No. 1: Just… Pitt students have two new reasons to be bitter this holiday season.

Reason No. 1: Just when it appeared the controversy surrounding the basketball ticket lottery had finally died down, the Pitt athletics department – upset with the low student attendance at the Panthers’ game against Duquesne – began selling more student season ticket passes.

No, there aren’t any leftover seats available from the lottery. A surplus of season ticket passes wasn’t discovered in a closet like a box of misplaced Florida ballots. The University is overselling the arena.

While I understand athletics director Steve Pederson’s desire to fill every student seat for every home game, I think this action was taken much too hastily.

The low attendance at Pitt’s contests against Duquesne and more recently, Arkansas-Pine Bluff and Norfolk State, are all easily explainable.

The Duquesne game took place the weekend before the Thanksgiving break and many students had already gone home.

The game against Arkansas-Pine Bluff took place during the Thanksgiving break and started literally hours after the conclusion to the Backyard Brawl.

As any student knows, the week before finals is quite possibly the busiest one of each semester. This likely accounts for the few seats that remained empty for Tuesday night’s game against Norfolk State.

Now, I’m not attempting to make excuses for the students who didn’t show up to these games, I’m simply saying that when it comes time to choose between watching Pitt blow out a nonconference opponent by 50 points or spending a holiday with your family or finishing the 12 page paper necessary to avoid failing a class, most students will opt for the later.

Because the Pete will be oversold, the students who were lucky enough to so much as have the chance at purchasing a season pass can’t be guaranteed a seat when the more important and more exciting teams visit.

This plan does ensure that a greater percentage of students will have access to tickets, but because student season tickets will go on a first come, first serve basis, it’s entirely possible for someone who dropped 20 bucks on a season pass to be denied admission all season long.

Sometimes, it seems as though the establishment just enjoys making people angry.

Reason No. 2: The same day extra season passes went on sale, Pitt accepted an invitation to the Insight Bowl.

Pitt played in this very bowl two years ago and lost to Iowa State. Maybe I’m mistaken, but I thought that this was a football program that was moving forward.

The Insight Bowl, which will take place in Phoenix Dec. 26, was just the game that Pitt needed as a program at a crucial stage two years ago.

It is not the game that it should be playing today.

If Pederson and head coach Walt Harris had displayed more patience in waiting for the bowl picture to develop, Pitt could have notched an invitation to either the Silicon Valley Football Classic on New Year’s Eve or to the Continental Tire Bowl Dec. 28.

The more prestigious a bowl game is, the closer it takes place to New Year’s Day. That makes the Silicon Valley Bowl a good venue with which Pitt could gain more national attention.

The Continental Tire Bowl is not only held closer to New Year’s Day, but in Charlotte, N.C. Its date and location make it decidedly more appealing than the Insight Bowl to Pitt fans, a majority of who reside on the East Coast.

A bowl game in Charlotte not only means cheaper and shorter flights, but that many fans could at least have the option of spending Christmas with their families.

To attend the Insight Bowl, Pitt students will have to fly all the way out to Phoenix during the busiest travel time of the year and spend Christmas away from their families.

Then, and only then, will the University provide students with a free ticket to the game – something that it used to do and should be doing anyway. How generous.

In addition to this, the fact remains that because all of Pitt’s potential opponents are Pacific coast teams, that opponent’s fans will be more willing to make the trip to Arizona and give an impartial venue a home field atmosphere.

Collegiate sports are nothing without students. The University repeatedly declines to make students a priority in these situations. If this doesn’t anger you, then the University is correct in doing so.

Matt Wein is a columnist for The Pitt News and he would travel to Phoenix in a heartbeat if he could afford it. To find out how you can make a donation to the Send-Matt-Wein-to-Phoenix Fund, e-mail him at [email protected].