[media-credit name=’DEREK MONTGOMERY/Herald Photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]University of Wisconsin men’s basketball has one of the smallest student sections in the Big Ten, despite a high demand for student tickets.

The Kohl Center, which has a total of 17,142 seats, currently offers 2,100 to students, equaling 12 percent of total available tickets, according to Steve Malchow, spokesperson for UW athletics.

Northwestern is the only other university in the Big Ten to set aside a smaller percentage of student seats, with 1,200 seats, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. However, Northwestern has nearly 14,000 students compared to UW’s 41,000 students.

The UW Athletic Department received approximately 3,700 student ticket requests for the 2005 basketball season, while two years ago less than half of the available tickets were in demand.

“We are blessed to have such interest in our program … [even though] our demand is greater than our supply,” Malchow said.

According to Malchow, a better way to address the demand for student tickets is to dispense split-season tickets. This would allocate half of the men’s basketball games to each ticket holder, doubling the amount of students who could attend games.

Students voted against the possibility of split-season tickets during the fall semester with a vote of 48 to 52. Malchow said students may have a chance to vote on this proposal again, but the plan would not be set into place unless students approve it.

UW sophomore and basketball ticket holder Aleem Bakhtiar said he did not originally agree with split-season ticket allocation, but he would now support the idea because of the many student ticket holders who do not attend every game. However, he noted there could be possible dilemmas with the plan.

“Figuring out what big games go to which people would be a problem,” Bakhtiar said.

Malchow said he believes it is unlikely seats reserved for non-student ticket holders would ever be allocated to students. He compared the current situation to the 2001 men’s basketball season, which saw 900 students requesting tickets out of the available 2,100.

At the time, Malchow said there was a large demand for tickets by alumni and the Athletic Department felt pressure to reduce the student section. UW did not take seats away from their student ticket holders at the time because the athletic board felt it would be unfair to the student fans, Malchow added.

The Associated Students of Madison is currently working on collecting student signatures for a petition to expand the student section.

ASM Chair Emily McWilliams said the organization will continue to collect student signatures in high traffic areas on campus until next Wednesday for their kick-off meeting. She said they want to have thousands of students’ support.

“[The] First step is to show there is a passion and concern for this issue,” McWilliams said.

Malchow said the athletic board is continuing to work with ASM on possible solutions for the increasing demand of student tickets.

“We’ve had good dialogue with ASM,” Malchow said.

ASM recently staged a demonstration, which students raised signs addressing the size of the student section, during the Wisconsin versus Illinois game, Jan. 25.