The Pacers Season Ticket Experiment: Failure #1

One game in, one set of wasted tickets. That's how things have gone so far.

With the Pacers opening up their season October 2nd, I was instead in Nashville, Tennessee watching my Dores get pounded by a mediocre Ole Miss team. So what did I miss?

Josh McRoberts dunks while getting a squeezer from John Salmons.

Well, not too much, actually. A Tyrus Thomas concussion (part of me is concerned for a guy who was becoming a threat with his mid-range game in the Celtics series last year, while the other part thinks he's just a talented punk who'll never get his dead straight), a Solomon Jones start (solid, if underwhelming, but they've had worse backup centers), four Roy Hibbert fouls compared to just 5 rebounds, and...well

this

Either Derrick Byars has put on a ton of weight and developed Vitiligo since he played at Vanderbilt, or ESPN has somehow confused him with Kevin Love. Still, it's nice to see him back in America, even if he did shoot 4-11 in the opener. With Shan Foster in Turkey and Langhi and Frejie still in Puerto Rico, it looks like Derrick's the most likely Vandy alum to be playing in the bigs this year.

So now I have 2 weeks until the next game, since the Pacers will be over in Asia playing a couple of preseason games. It must be nice for those kids in Taipei to see their idols Troy Murphy, Earl Watson, and Dahntay Jones play in person. Meanwhile, the Fieldhouse is bracing for another sellout from the WNBA Finals, as the Fever play someone for...something.

This is more exciting than anything I saw at the playoff game I went to.

As the excitement for the Fever builds, it's going to be interesting seeing how it affects the expectations for the Pacers season. The dropoff from sold-out WNBA(!) playoff games to a season opener at 75% (or less) capacity will hopefully send a big message to Messieurs Simon and Bird. The team recently sent out an online survey to gauge fan interest and - of course - at least three player names were misspelled.

It doesn't bode well for the season.

Next Home Game: 10/16 vs Houston

Level of Excitement: 1/5

(Editor's note: level of excitement for Pacers games depicted by Achewood characters along with a scale of 1-5)