Karl Malone. Randy White. P.J. Brown. Lonnie Cooper. Gerrod Henderson.

These are a few Bulldog basketball players who had spectacular careers at Tech and moved on to play at another level.

And now, the Bulldogs have another name that will soon be added to that list in sophomore Paul Millsap, who has garnered all kinds of awards and honors in only one season at Tech.

Aside from tremendous talent, these former stars also shared another common theme: they played to a minimal home crowd in the Thomas Assembly Center on a fairly consistent basis.

In essence, fans have missed opportunities to see great players in Bulldog jerseys. Granted no player is great without a great supporting cast. For example, without Ron Ellis or Anthony Dade, P.J. may not have had such a great tenure as a Bulldog. Gerrod needed Marco Cole and Antonio "Tiger" Meeking.

The same is true today for Paul, who this year, has a fantastic team surrounding him from starters to bench to coaching.

The "Dunkin' Dawgs" have never played to a large fan base, and not much complaining was heard.

It seemed almost as if the success of the Lady Techsters was enough to keep everyone satisfied year after year in the basketball department.

Don't get me wrong. Nobody is going to try to take away anything from the accomplishments of the Lady Techsters from the past 20 years.

Legendary former Lady Techster head coach Leon Barmore put the program in the right hands with new head coach Kurt Budke, and the Techsters will successfully continue for many years to come.

Thanks to those years of winning records, however, the Techsters pull in a fairly large fan base game in and game out.

On the other side of the ball is the men's team, who had suffered many losing seasons but also rejoiced in many winning seasons.

I hate to say that some of my first sports memories are watching a mass exodus of people out of the TAC at the end of a Lady Techster game right before the Bulldogs took the floor in home doubleheaders.

Time and time again after coach Barmore's Techsters had mopped the floor with some unlucky foe, fans got out of their seats and left as the Bulldogs were coming onto the floor for warm-ups.

Those same people missed Bulldog legends.

In present time, either the men's or women's team plays at home while the other plays on the road on the same night. And still, the Bulldogs' crowd is a fraction of the Lady Techsters' crowd.

If the truth were told, in the past few seasons we have seen an enormous boost in student attendance for men's games. But the Ruston community, for the most part, has not fully embraced the "Dunkin' Dawgs."

As students, let's keep our attendance on a climb, and get that "sea of blue" into the TAC. Show people like the "Cameron Crazies" at Duke University what Bulldogs' fans can be.

Come watch a great Bulldog team this year, and help make the Thomas Assembly Center a place that will be feared nationwide when the rest of north Louisiana catches on.

Kyle Roberts is a senior journalism major from Ruston and serves as associate sports editor for The Tech Talk.