Where there was once hysteria, there’s now silence.

After years of dwindling fan support, Illini Madness finally vanished last season, and nobody raised a finger.

For the record, if Illinois can orchestrate a well-organized and well-supported midnight madness, first-year basketball coach John Groce wants it to happen.

That’s now a much bigger question than it used to be, but his desire to ignite the Illini fan base is there.

On Friday, Illinois will enter its third straight season without an Illini Madness at Assembly Hall. Aside from a poorly received practice behind the south endzone during halftime of an Oct. 12, 2008, football game at Memorial Stadium, Illinois basketball hasn’t had more than 10,000 fans at a preseason opener since 2007.

Midnight madness isn’t what it used to be. Midnight madness started as a mile-long midnight run to ensure that Lefty Driesell’s 1971 University of Maryland hoops team kicked off the season at the moment the NCAA allowed practice. Today, it is now one of college sports’ greatest marketing stunts.

Just ask Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo, who performs most of the stunts.

From major-conference midnight madness heavy weights like Kentucky, Syracuse and Michigan State to Davenport University — where a video went viral this year when an assistant coach proposed to the school’s dance instructor while dressed as the school’s mascot, Pounce the Tiger  — it’s generally assumed that if the event is done right, it can be a positive way to secure recruits, build camaraderie with a fan base and generate excitement for the upcoming season.

While it’s only Jenny Larson’s second year as Assistant Athletics Director of Sales and Marketing for Illinois athletics, she worked as the assistant marketing director for Assembly Hall for seven years. She’s been waiting for a green light to plan a midnight madness for quite some time.

At the tail end of former Illini coach Bruce Weber’s tenure, the marketing department met with the coaching staff each year and was simply told it wasn’t time for a big event. The honeymoon from the Illini’s run to the 2005 Final Four was over, and the team hadn’t made it past the second round of the NCAA tournament since 2005-06, missing postseason play altogether in the 2007-08 season.

In 2009, a crowd of just 7,632 fans showed up for Illini Madness at Assembly Hall, and the event was relegated to Huff Hall, where seating restrictions only allow for 3,000 fans. It hasn’t recovered since.

“There’s no question team success has to factor into it and how much money we’re going to budget into it,” Larson said. “As your success kind of trails off, fans aren’t as excited and don’t want to come to those kinds of things. That’s kind of why the last four, five years we’ve just kind of tapered it off, and it just hasn’t been what it has been in the past.”

Larson makes a valid point. First-year Nebraska head coach Tim Miles is the new coach of the only BCS university, aside from Northwestern, that has never won an NCAA tournament game. He didn’t feel his program was ready for a major marketing venture, and he wanted to wait until it was worth the time and money to draw excitement.

But even in the darkest of times, Illinois basketball has never been deemed a lost cause.

Among all the turnover of getting acclimated to the new program, Groce still wanted a midnight madness. As the coach at Ohio University, Groce ran Hoops Hysteria, which he said was well attended and wildly successful at generating excitement.

When he arrived at Illinois, Assembly Hall was already booked for the first night of practice. The contract for the Bulls-Cavs preseason game on Oct. 12 was already signed, and logistical problems with doing both in one night caused the marketing department to drop the idea.

Both Groce and Larson said they expected a midnight madness event to return to Illinois within the next two years, but the planning would need to start soon. Larson is currently looking into planning a practice on the Quad when students return to school next fall, but events like midnight madness would take a full year to plan.

If Groce and Larson are looking for a prime example of a well-run event, they need not look outside the conference, where Tom Izzo is still waiting for the day his wife’s imaginary boyfriend finally kills him.

Fifty-seven-year-old men with families and comfortable employment usually don’t zip line across basketball stadiums in Ironman suits, moonwalk in space suits, drive Formula 1 Indy racecars or squeeze into miniature fighter jets, but all this has become commonplace for Michigan State’s legendary basketball coach. That sounds more like an endorsement for the “Most Interesting Man in the World” than a Big Ten basketball coach, and for that reason, he figures there has to be a hidden agenda.

His theory — his wife’s imaginary boyfriend wants him gone.

“It’s gotten to the point where it’s, ‘What crazy thing will he do this year?’” Izzo said. “Sometimes it’s a Final Four theme, driving in an Indy car, because we’re going to the Final Four (in Indianapolis). Sometimes it’s a military, driving in a little small plane, because we’re (playing on an aircraft carrier against North Carolina). Sometimes it is my wife’s boyfriend setting the scene so I propel down from the ceiling and the wire breaks.”

Michigan State doesn’t invite celebrities or entertainment acts to their Spartan Madness because they simply don’t have to. Their coach is the main attraction. One year, Michigan State invited movie star Gerard Butler — King Leonidas in the movie “300” — to attend the event dressed in full-Spartan gear. Izzo was standing next to him, dressed identically, and he stole the show.

“It’s not meant to be crazy. There’s a mission,” Izzo said. “Most of the things I do are to try and keep our program at a level of Duke, Carolina, Kentucky that have had 100 years of tradition. We haven’t had that. … They’re not gimmicks. They’re just things that help keep Michigan State, our program, up there all the time.”

In a 2009 assessment by ESPN and USA sports statistician Jeff Sagarin, Illinois was ranked the No. 6 basketball program of all-time — one spot ahead of Duke. Michigan State came in at No. 15.

Michigan State Assistant Director of Sales and Marketing Joe Rood said Spartan Madness generates a sense of pride for his department, and they love doing it. The event regularly receives national coverage (televised on ESPN two years ago and Big Ten Network this season) and the stadium is always packed (filled all 15,000 seats the last five seasons). Illinois managed a meager 14,000 fans in three combined preseason events between 2009-12. The attendance wasn’t recorded for this year’s Orange and Blue scrimmage.

Michigan State is a good model, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t bigger, and, perhaps, better events. Kentucky spends $250,000 each year on its midnight madness, and while Michigan State wouldn’t release its event’s total expenses, Rood deferred to Kentucky as the nation’s most extravagant example of an event.

The Wildcats rarely disappoint. From John Wall dancing on top of a giant screen, launching the point guard’s brand before even playing a collegiate game, to this year’s outstretched screen across the length of the court, where a video paid homage to the program’s most successful players throughout its history. Kentucky’s event is an example of what money and team success can buy.

Brittany Boyer, who works in Kentucky athletics’ marketing department, said attendance at this year’s Big Blue Madness was around 23,000 — at capacity — and that number included several recruits on campus visits.

The Wildcats have secured the No. 1 recruiting class in the country for three of the last four years, according to ESPN, and they currently hold the top class for 2013.

Let’s not forget Chicago-native and the first overall pick in the 2012 NBA draft Anthony Davis played for the Wildcats last season. With Groce’s increased emphasis on keeping elite Windy City talent in state, the Illini could be vying for the same recruits as Kentucky, especially with three of the top-30 recruits in the Class of 2014 from Illinois. ESPN’s No. 2 recruit in the Class of 2014 Jahlil Okafor and No. 8 Cliff Alexander are both from Chicago and have offers from Illinois and Kentucky. There’s no measure for how much a midnight madness impacts recruiting, but Groce admitted it can be an extremely prominent part of the process.

Syracuse Director of Athletic Communications Pete Moore said the increase in media attention at its event has been a huge factor for recruits, and ESPN’s increased interest in midnight madnesses has made that widespread across the country.

“Obviously, we see the Kentuckys and see what they do,” Larson said. “Obviously, we’re not there. … We get ideas, bounce things off other people to see what they’re doing, what they’re spending and how successful it is.”

ESPN involved 13 schools in its four-hour midnight madness programming on Oct. 12, including full practices from Indiana, Kentucky, NC State, Syracuse, North Carolina, Missouri, Pittsburgh and Florida State, and pieces of practices from Georgetown, Maryland, Baylor, Kansas and Murray State.

Larson said she thinks Illinois could jump into that group fairly easily as long as the team showed some promise to warrant the coverage.

“The ESPNs of the world, which they’re unique, there aren’t many of those, they’re looking to generate revenue as well, so they’re looking to go to the programs garnering that excitement nationwide,” Larson said.

While Illinois might not be Kentucky or Syracuse yet, it also isn’t Penn State or Nebraska, two basketball programs that have historically struggled to find their footing.

Penn State is historically a football school, but it still hosted its second straight Hoops Madness under second-year head coach Patrick Chambers. The program invited rapper Big Sean to perform, and paired the event with a pep rally for the Nittany Lions’ football game against Ohio State. They played to their strengths. Larson has a number of contacts in the entertainment industry from her position at Assembly Hall, and she might play to her strengths as well.

But not all the big programs feel the need to put on a show. Groce’s mentor, Thad Matta, whom he worked under for eight seasons at Ohio State, has never allowed a midnight madness during his tenure, and he doesn’t intend to have one.

“We’re worried about March Madness,” Matta said. “I deal in the reality side of things, and to me the reality is it’s a practice.”

That’s also the theory at Michigan, where the program has seemingly rebounded to the tune of a No. 5 preseason ranking, yet junior guard Tim Hardaway Jr. said head coach John Beilein has instructed the team to stay humble.

Even Illini senior guards Brandon Paul and D.J. Richardson said for this season, they preferred a small scrimmage to a giant event because the team is still implementing a new system and adjusting to a new coach. Frankly, practices are just too valuable for this team.

Still, it’s generally assumed that midnight madness is a positive way to brand a program, especially within Illinois’ marketing department. To a degree, some believe midnight madness has lost its luster. A new NCAA regulation for this season allowed players to work with coaches over the summer if they were enrolled in summer school. Team workouts for two hours a week began early on Sept. 15. It’s a 12-month season, and it’s harder to define when the first day of practice truly starts. It’s clear Driesell’s idea has shape-shifted into something different, but it might not be any less important to a program.

Poor athletics can lead to poor school spirit, but poor school spirit can also lead to poor athletics. Suddenly, in a year when the athletic department is paying coaches $7.1 million not to be here, $250,000 doesn’t seem like much for the program’s grandest marketing night of the year.

To justify a investment, Groce and Larson need fan support to at least raise a finger.

Ethan can be reached at [email protected] and @asofthesky.