This week Ashland University students and faculty crowded around computers all around campus to watch the women’s basketball team battle for their position in the NCAA Final Four.

The women’s team is a big deal and gives all AU students something to be proud of. For the first time in a long time, AU students had a team of fellow students to cheer on.

The basketball game held in Kates Gym on March 12 had record attendance when a sea of purple fans bellowed support for the Eagles.

The Elite Eight game on March 20 was another fantastic victory for the team but a really embarrassing moment back on campus. Everyone was watching the game, but no one was watching together.

Sure, clusters of a dozen or so students would occupy a classroom’s projector, but one giant viewing party would have been much more appropriate.

Before you say, “it was too short notice to allow for adequate planning” it obviously wasn’t, considering the NCAA had the schedule up for all to see well in advance. All it would have taken was a pre-planning and some braketing know-how to predict when the Eagles would play in the Elite Eight, if they made it that far.

It’s especially untrue considering all of the arrangements that had to be made for the team in San Antonio; hotels, transportation and other expenses all had to be considered immediately following the Sweet Sixteen win, at the latest.

So why wasn’t there a campus invitation to any of Ashland University’s many venues, Redwood, the Student Center Auditorium, a lecture hall or one of the several gyms on campus?

There was a viewing party in Kates Gym but its’ student and faculty attendance was dismal compared to the hundreds of students and faculty who were at the March 12 game.

On a campus where we have an emergency test email following an email saying “There will be an emergency test,” how hard would it have been to send out a very simple invitation to one of the aforementioned venues?

The technical needs of such a party aren’t anything our IT department can’t handle.

AU’s public relation office sent an email out on March 21 with links for that night’s game. They later sent an email with an invitation to either Kates or the student center auditorium less than four hours before the game would start. Both venues had high attendace

It’s a step in the right direction but a step that comes too late.