WHITROCK: Nine hundred and sixty-eight

That three-digit number represents the attendance at Tuesday night’s pivotal men’s basketball game. The Terriers, after weathering one of the harder non-conference schedules you’ll ever see, played seven road games against conference opponents in a 23-day span. By the beginning of this week, at 8-4 in conference play with only four home games remaining, Boston University was poised to do some damage.

First up on the slate? BU’s biggest rival, the University of Vermont Catamounts, sitting just a half-game ahead of the Terriers with an 8-3 conference record. A win would put BU on a three-game win streak and establish excellent position to make a late-season run; a loss would relegate BU to a clear fourth-place position in the standings. By any reasonable standard, this would be the Terriers’ biggest game of the season to date.

Yet as tipoff approached, the most noticeable aspect of the Agganis Arena environment had nothing to do with the pregame swagger of Vermont’s star forward Marqus Blakely. Nor was it Carlos Strong calibrating his dead-eye shot. Nor was it veteran head coach Mike Lonergan preparing for a battle of wits with BU’s first-year head coach, Patrick Chambers. All of those items, each interesting in its own way, were overshadowed by a reality too omnipresent to ignore.

Empty seats. They were everywhere &- behind the nets, behind the benches, up by the concourse, you name it. As the game situation grew increasingly tense during the later stages of the game, the few fans in attendance did their best to make some noise, but more often than not, the silence emanating from the thousands upon thousands of visible chairbacks was deafening.

In almost every respect, BU has the pieces to be a successful program. Agganis Arena is a facility worthy of a big-time basketball team. The players on the roster are talented and more talent is already in the pipeline. The head coach is passionate, respected by both his players and his peers, and has several players on the team playing the best basketball of their collegiate careers.

But when it comes to getting students to care, the Terriers can’t win. Win games against talented, well-known opponents, and students still don’t show up. Give away merchandise at the door game after game, and students still don’t show up. Switch to an exciting style of play, set a school record for the most made 3-point baskets in a game, and students still don’t show up.

Frustrating? From the perspective of someone who cares about this program and wants to see it succeed, frustrating doesn’t begin to cover it. It’s not just frustrating. It’s pathetic. It’s downright embarrassing.

Without going off on the legions of “fans’ claiming they’ll show up when BU puts a quality product on the court &- a front-runner mentality, to be sure, but a common mentality nonetheless &- one question: do you go to hockey games? If you do, then your selection criteria are inconsistent.

Which team has a record below .500, both in conference play and overall? The hockey team. Which team has been called out time and again for failing to put forth consistent effort? The hockey team. But which team continues to fill Agganis Arena with near-capacity crowds? The hockey team.

Don’t get me wrong here. It’s a great thing that people attend hockey games. I wish every BU hockey game was sold out. That’s not the point.

The point is this: The fans claiming to be interested in a quality product fail to show up when said quality product is presented. Devotion to hockey? Awesome, keep it up. Claiming you’ll pay attention to basketball if the team plays well and is fun to watch, then continuing the disappearing act when the team does exactly that? That’s weak.

Fan apathy isn’t without precedent here. In 2003-04, BU won 23 out of 24 games, culminating with an America East regular-season title. The last home game on the schedule came against Stony Brook University, with a chance to clinch a share of that title.

At the tail end of arguably the most dominant stretch of basketball in Terrier basketball history, how many fans showed up for that Senior Day? 1,159. BU couldn’t sell out Case. BU couldn’t even get Case to be two-thirds full. There was no hockey to compete for fan interest that day &- people just didn’t care.

And they still don’t. Since BU’s mascot already has an affiliation with “Gone with the Wind,” this seems strangely appropriate. BU basketball is Scarlett. The BU community is Rhett. Terrier basketball is desperately in need of some fan support, but when Scarlett inquires, it turns out Rhett doesn’t give a damn what Scarlett does.

Maybe Scarlett deserved exactly what she got, but BU basketball deserves better.