Perhaps the powers that be at the Penn State Athletic Department knew what was coming -- or, more appropriately, what wasn't.

Perhaps they knew that even with the Penn State men's basketball team's first postseason appearance in five years, the first postseason home game in six, that few people would come. Perhaps that's why the entire upper bowl of the 15,261-seat arena was curtained off prior to the team's March 14 opening-round NIT loss to Rutgers.

"Yeah, it's disheartening, but what can we do?" Penn State senior forward Travis Parker said of the season's low attendance numbers. "We can't make people come out here."

The official attendance was less than 7,000 -- which, sadly, was still several hundred people above the total that the Nittany Lions averaged for a midweek contest.

To be fair, there was less than a 48-hour turnaround between the announcement that there would be a NIT home game and the game's tip-off. Because season tickets do not extend into the postseason, the marketing department came to work on a Monday morning with zero tickets sold, selling every ticket in a 36-hour window.

The box office window for the rest of the season, though, was not as busy as most would prefer.

This season was the worst attendance year for Penn State men's hoops since the program moved down Curtin Road from Rec Hall to the Bryce Jordan Center 10 years ago. The Nittany Lions averaged 6,834 fans over their 17 total regular-season home contests, 8,210 over their eight conference games.

A dozen times this season, a Penn State home game attracted such a sparse crowd that the event could have been held in Rec Hall without sacrificing attendance. Four of those contests were against league opponents.

Four Big Ten schools boasted home attendance marks from the conference slate alone (eight home games) that exceeded the total of 116,176 people in attendance for the 17 games at the Jordan Center.

Early in the season, Parker gathered the team together during pregame warmups before a contest at the Jordan Center. He told the Lions not to be bothered by the lackluster crowd, that the players had to do their part and the rest of the pieces would fall into place.

With the season now over, a few of those pieces have yet to fall.

"I've got to do what I'm supposed to do -- try to win games," Penn State men's basketball coach Ed DeChellis said when asked about the home crowds.

"I've got to let the people responsible for putting people in the stands do their jobs."

For league games only, the Big Ten experienced its best season since the 2001-02 campaign, drawing an average of 13,535 fans to each contest.

"The crowds are great on the road, the atmosphere is fun on the road," DeChellis said. "We say to [our players], 'This is what you come to play Big Ten basketball for.' "

And then they come home.

At the Jordan Center, just about every person physically inside the arena is counted among those in attendance.

"Almost everyone," said Bud Meredith, Director of Ticket Operations. "Working personnel, pep bands, that type of thing."

Even so, the Lions averaged the second worst attendance in the conference this year.

Not having Illinois and Michigan State on the home schedule didn't help matters.

The biggest problem, though, is the pesky Wednesday night game.

"Saturdays have not been a great problem for us; the Wednesday night games have been the real struggle," DeChellis said. "That's where we have to do a better job with our students. We've got all these students on campus, and, if we can get them out Wednesday night and make our place fill up with energy and fun, then more students will come and more people will come. It's a domino effect."

The third-year head coach admitted that he did not know the reasons for the poor attendance.

Greg Myford, however, has a few ideas.

Myford, Penn State's Associate Athletic Director for Marketing and Communications, said the numbers are not as bad if broken down into non-conference games and Big Ten games. Since the Lions hosted more non-conference games against weak opponents this year than in the past, the numbers for those contests may bring down the season average.

Myford points out that for Penn State's final regular season home game, a Saturday matinee against bottom-feeder Northwestern, the Jordan Center drew a larger crowd than it did in 2005 for then-No. 1 (and, at the time, undefeated) Illinois' visit to Happy Valley, albeit by only 41 people.

"That probably says more about the following that the team is starting to build," Myford said. "Most people would be surprised to hear that."

That Illinois game, though, was a midweek contest, something that both Myford and DeChellis have admitted to be a tough draw against most any opponent at University Park.

"One of the challenges that will always be here because of how we're situated geographically is that we have a 15,000-seat building in a relatively small market," Myford explained. "Any expectation to fill the building on a Wednesday night, you're going to need to do so by drawing from places other than State College."

Which is why Myford and his marketing minions try to make sure that everyone in the local community knows exactly when and against whom the team plays at home.

The short turnaround (which limited public exposure to the event) and nonexistent season ticket commitment for the NIT game resulted in the entire upper level of the BJC being curtained off.

The black curtains that would normally cover the upper-level seats behind the baskets were draped around the circumference of the arena. Almost everyone in attendance sat in the lower bowl, creating a better, smaller atmosphere.

"We just said, 'Look, let's pack this lower bowl and create a buzz in the air and give our team the best home court advantage we can while giving our fans the best experience,' " Myford recounted. "If more tickets had been sold, we'd make the decision to lift curtains."

Both DeChellis and Myford said they were happy with student support this entire year, especially for the NIT game, in which the regular student section was full more than 30 minutes before tip.

It would have been nice, though, had that many students turned out for other midweek events.

The average attendance for Saturday games during the conference season was 10,069. The average for the four Wednesday home games on the Big Ten slate came to 6,351.

The home game against Illinois last year drew the largest midweek crowd (10,966) at the BJC since January 2001.

DeChellis and the people upstairs hope that the program can become something that is talked about in the community, something that gains in popularity with the more success it enjoys. For this year at least, the program was content to play a weak non-conference schedule in order to build some confidence and make a run to the NIT.

Bigger things are hoped for in the future.

"Until we're there, it will be challenging to have people drive here from Harrisburg or Williamsport, or certainly from Pittsburgh or Philadelphia -- we may never get those markets on a weeknight," Myford lamented. "But when we're a top-10 program, we will become a destination for those markets on weekends."

Though spirits and optimism are running high after the team's best season in five years, the fact remains that one of Penn State's two revenue sports has not lived up to its earnings potential.

"We have a lot of work to do -- that's the bottom line," Myford said.

The basketball team's fiscal bottom line was worse than that of any other Big Ten team in 2004-05, the last year for which data is available.

Until they can draw enough interest and revenue to catch up with teams like Purdue, the financial situation of the Penn State men's basketball team remains relatively dark, almost as dark as the black curtains in the BJC.

Those curtains may serve as the telltale sign of the program's popularity. If the team continues to improve and gains in popularity, the curtains may disappear.

"Until we have a reason to move those curtains out of the way, I'd say we will keep them there," Myford said.