About that survey of "7,000 members of `The Den'" UCLA talked up in its press release as a justification for banishing students from the court-side ... one of our readers found it. Here is the link.

Here is the question that was used to come up with clever line about "over 82 percent " of the Den Members wanting to be in "a seating area that gave them unity and the ability to help give our teams the home court advantage they deserve."

16. Do you think Pauley split seating (student seats on floor and upper level separated by mid-level public seating) interferes with the effectiveness of the student section?

It asked for "yes" or "no" answer. As gbruin noted there is no way any rational person could take the data from such question and justify banishing the whole student section behind one basket.

If I were a student I'd be pretty insulted about this. This is misrepresentation and it is also really slimy.

If the folks at Athletic Department had a moral compass, they would reverse this boondoggle and issue an apology to students and to the UCLA community.