Australia is a sports-mad country that is home to some of the world’s rowdiest fans. Whether it’s cricket, tennis, Australian rules football, rugby or basketball, if Australia is playing you can bet that there will be an inordinate amount of noise coming from Australian fans.

So when Andrew Bogut, the Bucks’ Australian-born center, looked around the Bradley Center in Milwaukee last season and saw the anemic crowd participation, you could imagine his disappointment.

“We know we’re a small market,” Bogut said in a telephone interview, “and with the way the economy is, it’s sometimes hard for us to get 15,000 fans on a Wednesday night. A lot of times it was very, very quiet.”

This season, Bogut decided to do something about it. He bought 100 lower-level seats for every home game and gave them to fans who he was certain would raise the decibel level at the Bradley Center. The result was Squad 6, a wild cluster of standing, chanting and screaming fans decked out in wigs, sombreros and even a man brandishing a wrestling-style championship belt.

“I thought it would be better just to get an atmosphere created in there,” Bogut said. “It’s only 100 people, but the noise they make sounds like 1,000. It gives us some energy to feed off.”



The Bucks’ staff and Bogut, who wears No. 6, held three rounds of auditions for fans wanting to join the section. The first two were in October before the start of the season and the third was held outdoors in the cold last Sunday.

Some of the highlights included two young men in matching Christmas sweaters pounding on pots and pans, a woman screaming that she was “over” Charlie Villanueva (who left the Bucks for the Pistons in the off-season), numerous “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi” chants, and some of the worst rapping ever. All those acts were apparently accepted into Section 6. (Video of the tryouts can be found at NBA.com/bucks.)

Although the Bucks are .500, a closer look at their record may prove that Squad 6 is having an effect. Milwaukee is 2-8 on the road but 9-3 at home. The Dallas owner Mark Cuban said this about Squad 6 on Twitter: “Those fans were the most fun fans I have seen on the road EVER. It made the atmosphere 100x better. More P.B.R. for them.”

It’s not all fun and games in Squad 6, however. Each fan essentially agrees to stand and cheer from tip-off to the final buzzer, and attendance is mandatory; miss too many games and you will lose your free seat. So far, no one has been removed.

Asked if the cheers coming from Squad 6 ever made him laugh on the court, Bogut laughed and said, “All the time.”

His personal favorite? “When Joakim Noah was at the free-throw line and they were all singing ‘Dude Looks Like a Lady,’” Bogut said.

Positive Signs of Love

In a season that was over before it started, all the Minnesota Timberwolves could do was look for positive signs for the future. One man the Timberwolves could look to was Kevin Love, the second-year forward out of U.C.L.A. He has been dominating in five games since returning from a broken hand.

Coming off the bench in his first four games before starting Friday, Love has been a per-minute sensation. His average of 13.2 points a game isn’t overly impressive, but it jumps to 22.2 points when taken over 48 minutes. For comparison, O.J. Mayo of the Grizzlies is scoring 17.6 points a game and 22.4 per 48 minutes.

Where Love has excelled is rebounding. He is averaging 11.6 rebounds, which translates to 19.5 per 48 minutes. The league leader, Dwight Howard, pulls down 17.3 per 48. BEN HOFFMAN