You probably haven’t heard of Michael Young. It’s OK. There’s no reason you should have.

Young is a senior at Freed-Hardeman University (you probably haven’t heard of Freed Hardeman, either. It’s a small private university in Henderson, Tenn. Haven’t heard of Henderson? Well, you get the point). Young is the starting point guard for the Lions, the No. 12 team in the polls for the NAIA (similar to the NCAA’s Division III in competition).

You haven’t heard of Michael Young, but on Oct. 25, Young and his teammates led a Midnight Madness event at Freed-Hardeman in front of 200 fans (about 10 percent of the student body) to drum up excitement for the coming season.

That’s 200 more fans than Illinois — a heralded basketball program boasting a rich history peppered with memorable teams and names and a student population around 40,000 — had turn out for Midnight Madness this year because the program elected not to hold the event.

Freed-Hardeman’s Midnight Madness, as expected, pales in comparison to the upper echelon NCAA programs. Kentucky spent between $250,000 and $300,000 on Big Blue Madness this year, with more than 20,000 fans in attendance. Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo delights crowds of 15,000-plus each year with dazzling entrances.

And while those are certainly extreme examples that most college programs can only dream to replicate, there is no good reason for Illinois not to hold its own version.

Multiple explanations have been tossed out by the Illinois coaching staff and marketing team to defend the absence of the season-opening kickoff. The two most frequently mentioned are the need for a productive first practice and a date conflict — by the time first-year head coach John Groce was hired, Assembly Hall had been contracted out for a Chicago Bulls preseason game.

Both of those justifications are flawed. Let’s take a look at them one at a time.

I don’t buy the argument that the Bulls game was an insurmountable obstacle to a midnight madness event. If anything, it was an incredible opportunity to continue the marketing of Illinois sports to Chicago-based fans and athletes. The Chicago area is the hotbed for recruiting in all sports, basketball in particular. Isn’t a large part of the marketing strategy behind the athletic department’s “Our State. Our Team,” slogan to keep talented Chicago recruits feeling pride in their state school? The first question Groce dealt with at his introductory news conference had to do with how he would recruit the Chicago area.

The program missed a huge opportunity to capitalize off the presence of a Chicago Bulls team that has created as much buzz in the past few years as any team since the Michael Jordan era. On college campuses everywhere, midnight madness is often held in tandem with other events, like volleyball matches. Jenny Larson, assistant director of sales and marketing for the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics, said Illinois had hoped to hold such an event but ran into “snags” with inviting fans into the gym before the Bulls game ended. But the issues could not have been so challenging to work around that it was worth missing out on marketing the Illinois team, program and brand to thousands of passionate Chicago fans. Finding a way to involve the Bulls brand with the season-opening kickoff for Illinois would have been invaluable.

Second, as our good friend Allen Iverson taught us, practice is important. Nobody would argue it isn’t, and the first official practice of the season is perhaps slightly more so than most. But that blow is softened significantly by the new NCAA rule that allows coaches to work with players, once every week, who are taking classes over the summer. Also, the impact of losing one practice — even for a team with a new head coach — is insignificant when weighed against the positive outcomes from midnight madness. The event would give potential recruits a chance to get a look at what Illinois basketball is all about: the tradition, the passion and the fans. And it could help Groce make up ground in the recruiting game.

More importantly, though, it would inspire some excitement in an Illinois fan base that is desperately wanting for something to feel good about. Illini fans used to feel pride in their teams, but recent years of watching Demetri McCamey-led squads underachieve and last season’s failure to make any type of postseason play have destroyed most of that feeling. Fans are fickle, and all but the most devoted have learned to live without Illinois basketball.

The evidence around the program is telling. At this season’s Stuff Huff volleyball match, at which the basketball team traditionally makes an appearance and the head coach signs autographs, virtually none of the students cared that the team was there. I waited in line for 20 or 30 minutes for a picture and autograph with Bruce Weber three years ago (the evidence has since been destroyed). John Groce sat all by himself at the autograph table at times this year. A couple thousand fans is an optimistic estimate for the attendance of the Orange and Blue Scrimmage. And if the reported attendance for the two exhibition games against Lewis and West Chester, 14,299 and 11,492, is even with 5,000 fans of the truth, then I’m as good an actor as Paul Walker (wait, I actually might be better).

All of this evidence speaks to a problem extending beyond the lack of a midnight madness event. The marketing team behind Illinois basketball, and all Illini sports really, is failing. Football attendance numbers are down. Student support is falling. Yes, a large part of that is due to losing teams, but that’s where marketing needs to enter the conversation. That’s a huge part of its purpose. But since my arrival at Illinois, the only promotions I have seen outside of games have been fightingillini.com emails and a sign outside Huff Hall.

The marketing team and the basketball team have said they want to hold a midnight madness event in upcoming years. They missed out on a wonderful opportunity already this year, but I guess it’s better late than never.

Daniel is senior in Media. He can be reached at [email protected].         Follow him on Twitter @danielmillermc.