Practice makes perfect not only on the basketball court, but also with the new basketball lottery system.

Chris Connolly of the Office of University Information Technologies and junior Student Government Association Basketball Chair John Imperiale have been striving to perfect the new lottery procedure since its implementation at the beginning of this basketball season.

Imperiale and Connolly have dealt with and resolved technology malfunctions in the website and Wildcard swiping units. They have also added a second round of ticket distribution and pick-up.

“Now everything is going smoothly,” Imperiale said.

SGA president Maureen Holland expressed continuing support for the new system, saying, “As long as everyone is patient with the system this year, it will result in the best system possible … [since it] does reward the fans that go to every game and prevents people from losing the lottery consecutively.”

While some frustrated students have voiced complaints about not receiving tickets through the lottery, Imperiale explained that the new lottery program is not designed to guarantee tickets to all students. Rather, it provides a fairer method for distributing the tickets while still using a lottery system based on chance. If students attend the games for which they receive tickets, their weight in the lottery will increase and thus provide them a better chance of winning future tickets.

Imperiale said that if students’ Wildcards are not swiped at a game due to late arrival or because of a lack in card swiper availability, they can e-mail SGA through the basketball lottery website and will then receive a correction to their lottery weight. University basketball fans have expressed mixed feelings about the new system.

Sophomore George Generas said the lottery is “a great method because tickets aren’t wasted on people who don’t show up.”

“There has been much more participation in the lottery, partly due to the anticipated success of the freshman [basketball players],” Imperiale said.

Game attendance remains similar to last year’s because there has been no increase in the number of tickets offered to students.

Imperiale said he thinks this form of the lottery system will provide a long term solution for fairly distributing tickets.