With basketball season just around the corner, it is time to make those spirit points pay off and get some good seats.

Red Scare will be holding its preferred ticket voucher sales Friday, Oct. 30 in Frericks Gym. This marks the first chance students will have to purchase their season tickets for the Dayton men's basketball season.

Any student with thoughts of having good seats for the basketball season will most likely need to buy vouchers Friday.

Vouchers for the 2009-2010 season cost $35, and they cover all 16 home games. Also included in the deal is the Red Scare basketball T-shirt for this year.

Buying the vouchers is just the first step in the process of making it to the basketball games. Next, students can register in groups to get tickets for the games. Students register a week before the preferred distribution date online at the SPS Portal through Ticketmaster.

When registration closes Red Scare will rank each group based on its average spirit points. Once the groups are ranked, they will line up in order on the preferred distribution date to receive tickets for that set of games. Therefore, the group with the highest average spirit points will get the first seats.

Each group must make sure to send a representative at the appropriate time and with all the correct information: group name, password and rank.

In 2008 Red Scare sold out of vouchers on the first day for the first time. To avoid that again, Red Scare president Matt Purpus said that the organization will sell unlimited vouchers, and tickets will be distributed to the top groups until they run out of seats.

"We are going to allow the students that have the best spirit points to be the ones that receive the tickets," he said.

While this may seem like a raw deal for some of the more casual fans, or people who just haven't racked up many Spirit Points, Purpus said it wasn't a problem last year.

"Last year we thought there might have been a chance that some of the games would sell out, but that really wasn't the case," he said. "Even though we are selling more vouchers than there are seats, we don't foresee a problem with students who want tickets not being able to get them."

It is possible to get tickets to the basketball games without buying the preferred ticket vouchers. This option makes any Spirit Points (or lack thereof) irrelevant. However, the seats are guaranteed to be farther away from the court.

Red Scare is planning on doing more promotional events surrounding the basketball season, whereas in the past it had generally just allowed basketball to carry itself.

"We want to have a few more promotions, a few more activities, that will be more fun for the students, to kind of get them engaged more," Purpus said.

For more information on voucher sales, group registration, ticket distribution or anything else Red Scare, go to www.udaytonredscare.com.