NCAA Men’s Basketball « billsportsmaps.com

November 15, 2014

NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball – map of the top 100 drawing teams, 2013-14 season (home games, regular season): #1 Syracuse; #2 Kentucky; #3 Louisville.

Filed under: NCAA Men's Basketball,NCAA/bk-attendance map: 2010, 2014 — admin @ 9:30 pm

NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball – map of the top 100 drawing teams, 2013-14 season
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Source of data for map…2014 NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL ATTENDANCE [pdf].

My first version of this map can be seen here, NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball – The top 100 drawing teams, 2009-10 season (home games, regular season).

That was four years ago. Since then, 10 different teams have cracked the top 100: #68th-highest-drawing Weber State Wildcats, #69th-highest-drawing Boise State Broncos, #72th-highest-drawing Northwestern Wildcats, #77th-highest-drawing UMass Minutemen, #86th-highest-drawing Richmond Spiders, #90th-highest-drawing Indiana State Sycamores, #93rd-highest-drawing Miami Hurricanes, #95th-highest-drawing SMU Mustangs, #97-highest-drawing Southern Illinois Salukis, and #100th-highest-drawing Wyoming Cowboys. Teams that just missed the top 100 for 2013-14: Stanford (5,111), Toledo (5,002), TCU (4,955), George Mason (4,916), Illinois State (4,842).

And of a more front-page-type bit of news, there is a new #1-drawing college basketball team in Division I…
The Syracuse Orange of Syracuse, New York (metro-area population: 662,000 {2010 figure). The Orange’s basketball team has supplanted the University of Kentucky Wildcats (of Lexington, Kentucky) as the top draw in college hoops. Syracuse last led the nation in college basketball attendance in 2005. But in 17 of the 18 previous seasons (1996-2004; 2006-13), Kentucky has led in attendance. Kentucky had also led in attendance during the 1977 to 1984 time period (8 seasons), with Syracuse (after the Carrier Dome had opened in Sept. 1980) then leading in the 1985 to 1995 time period (10 seasons). {See this, NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Attendance Leaders Year by -Year (1970-2014) [pdf].}

Syracuse averaged 26,253 in the 2013-14 NCAA Division I regular season. They increased their home crowds by 3,813 per game (or by 16.9%) compared to the previous season (2012-13). That actually was not the largest numerical increase in crowd size in Division I basketball – that was by the Nebraska Cornhuskers, who increased their average attendance by 5,063 per game (or 48.8%), and were the 13th highest-drawing college bk team {see this list of biggest increases on page 2 of that pdf from the ncaa.org}. Nebraska were also one of the eight teams in the top-100-draws who played to full-capacity last season, and on the list at the far right of the map page, those 8 teams have an asterisk next to their attendance figure (the list of the 8 teams who played to full-capacity at their arenas last season can be found at the foot of this post).

Syracuse’s attendance increase (of 16.9% or +3,813) certainly was aided by a strong Syracuse team and a long winning streak, but it is more attributable to Syracuse’s shift from the now-mid-major Big East Conference into the basketball power that is the Atlantic Coast Conference (the ACC). To see the proof of that, just look at the gate figures for some of Syracuse’s in-conference games last season at the Carrier Dome (capacity 35,446 for basketball), 2013-14 being the Syracuse Orange’s inaugural season in the ACC…
- 32,121 in attendance for the Oranges’ Jan. 11 2014 game vs. the North Carolina Tar Heels (in ACC) (57-45, Syr.);
- 30,046 in attendance for the Oranges’ Jan. 18 2014 game vs. the Pitt Panthers (also now in ACC) (59-54, Syr.);
- 35,466 (capacity sell-out crowd/NCAA record) in attendance for the Orange’s Feb. 1 2014 game vs. the Duke Blue Devils (in ACC) (91-89/OT, Syr.);
- 31,572 in attendance for the Orange’s Feb. 15 2014 game vs. the NC State Wolf Pack (in ACC) (56-55, Syr.).
- Note: other high-drawing games at the Carrier Dome last season: 28,135 for Villanova (in Big East); 26,766 for Georgia Tech (in ACC); 26,716 for Boston College (in ACC since 2005); 26,414 for Indiana (in Big Ten). {attendances from Syracuse Orange men’s basketball team/Schedule (en.wikipedia.org).

Syracuse flamed out in the second round of the NCAA Tournament (losing to Dayton), but they had a good run and filled a heck of a lot of seats last season, and it is starting to look like being in the ACC will give a real boost to the whole Syracuse athletics program.

The Kentucky Wildcats were #2 in attendance in Division I basketball for 2013-14. The Wildcats saw a slight decrease from the previous season of -135 per game (or -0.6%). Kentucky drew 23,964 per game in 2013-14, and had drawn 23,099 per game in 2012-13. The Kentucky Wildcats’ great drawing-power is rather remarkable for a city – Lexington, KY – that has a metro-area population of only 185,000 {2013 figure}.

The Louisville Cardinals were #3 in attendance in Division I (at 21,282 per game), once again making it two of the top 3-highest-drawing venues in college basketball located in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. From the Louisville Courier-Journal, from 19 June 2014, by Jonathan Lintner, Syracuse tops UK in basketball attendance; [Kentucky second;] U of L third (courier-journal.com/story/sports/college).

Here are the 8 teams in the top-100 who played to full capacity in 2013-14:
#9-drawing Kansas Jayhawks, who played to 100.8 percent-capacity, drawing 16,437 per game at the 16,300-capacity Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kansas.
#13-drawing Nebraska Cornhuskers, who played to 101.7 percent-capacity, drawing 15,419 per game at the 15,147 Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska.
#18-drawing Michigan State Spartans, who played to 100.0 percent-capacity, drawing 14,797 per game at the Breslin Center in East Lansing, Michigan.
#28-drawing San Diego State Aztecs, who played to 100.0 percent-capacity, drawing 12,414 per game at the Viejas Arena in San Diego, California.
#36-drawing Wichita State Shockers, who played to 102.1 percent-capacity, drawing 10,732 per game at the 10,506-capacity Charles Koch Arena in Wichita, Kansas.
#46-drawing Duke Blue Devils, who played to 100.0 percent-capacity, drawing 9,314 per game at the Cameron Indoor Arena in Durham, North Carolina.
#62-drawing VCU Rams, who played to 100.6 percent-capacity, drawing 7,741 per game at the 7,693-capacity Stuart C. Siegel Center in Richmond, Virginia.
#87-drawing Gonzaga Bulldogs, who played to 100.0 percent-capacity, drawing 6,000 per game at the McCarthey Athletic Center in Spokane, Washington.
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Thanks to AMK1211 for blank map of USA, ‘File:Blank US Map with borders.svg”>File:Blank US Map with borders.svg‘ (commons.wikimedia.org).

Thanks to ncaa.org for 2014 NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL ATTENDANCE [pdf].

Thanks to Sports Logos screensavers for some of the logos, sports-logos-screensavers.com/NationalCollegiateAthleticsAssociation. Thanks to ESPN site for some of the logos (the often-hard-to-find type, with a transparent background), such as at espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/team/_/id/113/massachusetts-minutemen.

Thanks to the contributors at the en.wikipedia.org college teams pages, such as Syracuse Orange men’s basketball.

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March 16, 2014

2014 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament – the 68 teams – map, with team locations / Plus 2013 average attendances listed.

Filed under: NCAA Men's Basketball — admin @ 7:30 pm

2014 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament – the 68 teams – map, with team locations / Plus 2013 average attendances listed

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This is the 76th NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament (aka March Madness). The Final Four will be played at AT&T Stadium in Arlington [Greater Dallas], Texas from April 7th to the 9th; with the Final on April 9. There are two teams that are making tournament debuts – the North Carolina Central Eagles, of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (a conference comprised of schools which are historically black colleges), who are from Durham, NC; and the Cal Poly Mustangs, of the Big West Conference, who are from San Luis Obispo, California – which is about midway between Los Angeles and the Bay Area, near the Pacific coast, and about 70 miles north of Santa Barbara.

Below are the 2 best sites for March Madness scores, game reports, info, etc. -

ESPN – College BK/ home.

CBSsports.com/College BK.

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Qualified teams (alphabetically) -
Listed below by: Name (Conference), Location.
Albany Great Danes (America East), Guilderland [Greater Albany], NY.
American University Eagles (Patriot), Washington, DC.
Arizona Wildcats (Pac-12), Tucson, AZ.
Arizona State Sun Devils (Pac-12), Tempe [Greater Phoenix], AZ.
Baylor Bears (Big 12), Waco, TX.
BYU [Brigham Young University] Cougars (West Coast), Provo, UT.
Cal Poly Mustangs (Big West), San Luis Obispo, CA.
Cincinnati Bearcats (The American), Cincinnati,OH.
Coastal Carolina Chanticleers (Big South), Conway, SC.
Colorado Buffaloes (Pac-12), Boulder, CO.
Connecticut [UCONN] Huskies (The American), Storrs, CT [& Hartford, CT].
Creighton Bluejays (Big East), Omaha, NE.
Dayton Flyers (Atlantic 10), Dayton, OH.
Delaware Blue Hens (Colonial), Newark, DE.
Duke Blue Devils (ACC), Durham, NC.
Eastern Kentucky Colonels (Ohio Valley), Richmond, KY.
Florida Gators (SEC), Gainesville, FL.
George Washington Colonials (Atlantic 10), Washington, DC.
Kansa Jayhawks (Big 12), Lawrence, KS
Kansas State (Big 12), Manhattan, KS.
Kentucky Wildcats (SEC), Lexington, KY.
Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns (Sun Belt), Lafayette, LA.
Louisville Cardinals (The American), Louisville, KY.
Manhattan Jaspers (MAAC), Riverdale, The Bronx, NYC, NY.
Massachusetts [UMass] Minutemen (Atlantic 10), Amherst, MA.
Memphis Tigers (The American), Memphis, TN.
Mercer Bears (Atlantic Sun), Macon, GA.
Michigan Wolverines (Big Ten), Ann Arbor, MI.
Michigan State Spartans (Big Ten), Lansing, MI.
Milwaukee Panthers (Horizon), Milwaukee, WI.
Mount St. Mary’s Mountaineers (Northeast), Emmitsburg, MD.
Nebraska Cornhuskers (Big Ten), Lincoln, NE.
New Mexico Lobos (Mountain West), Albuquerque, NM.
New Mexico State Aggies (WAC), Las Cruces, NM.
North Carolina Tar Heels (ACC), Chapel Hill, NC.
North Carolina Central Eagles (MEAC), Durham, NC.
North Carolina State Wolfpack (ACC), Raleigh, NC.
North Dakota State Bison (Summit), Fargo, ND.
Ohio State Buckeyes (Big Ten), Columbus, OH.
Oklahoma State Cowboys (Big 12), Stillwater, OK.
Oklahoma Sooners (Big 12), Norman, OK.
Oregon Ducks (Pac-12), Eugene, OR.
Pitt [Pittsburgh] Panthers (ACC), Pittsburgh, PA.
Providence Friars (Big East), Providence, RI.
Saint Joseph’s Hawks (Atlantic 10), Philadelphia, PA.
Saint Louis Billikins (Atlantic 10), St. Louis, MO.
San Diego State Aztecs (Mountain West), San Diego,CA.
Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks (Southland), Nacogdoches, TX.
Stanford Cardinal (Pac-12), Palo Alto, CA.
Syracuse Orange (ACC), Syracuse, NY.
Tennessee Volunteers (SEC), Knoxville, TN.
Texas Longhorns (Big 12), Austin, TX.
Texas Southern Tigers (SWAC), Houston, TX.
Tulsa Golden Hurricane (Conf-USA), Tulsa, OK.
UCLA Bruins (Pac-12), Los Angeles, CA.
VCU [Virgina Commonwealth University] Rams (Atlantic 10), Richmond, VA.
Villanova Wildcats (Big East), Villanova, PA.
Virginia Cavaliers (ACC), Charlottesville, VA.
Weber State Wilcats (Big Sky), Ogden, UT.
Western Michigan Broncos (MAC), Kalamazoo, MI.
Wichita State Shockers (Missouri Valley), Wichita, KS.
Wisconsin Badgers (Big Ten), Madison, WI.
Wofford Terriers (Southern), Spartanburg, SC.
Xavier Musketeers (Big East), Cincinnati, OH.
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Attendance figures from, http://www.ncaa.org/championships/statistics/ncaa-mens-basketball-attendance.
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Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘2014 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament’.
Thanks very much to Chris Dobbertean at http://www.sbnation.com/authors/chris-dobbertean and at bloggingthebracket.com.
Thanks to all the folks who found mistakes on the map at http://www.reddit.com/r/CollegeBasketball/comments/20l6of/map_of_the_field_of_68_by_location/.

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March 17, 2013

2013 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament – the 68 teams – map, with team locations / Plus 2011 and 2012 average attendances listed.

Filed under: NCAA Men's Basketball — admin @ 9:18 pm

2012 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament map – 68 teams

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‘NCAA Men’s Division I Tournament bids by school‘ (en.wikipedia.org).

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This is the 75th NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. The Final Four will be played in the Georgia Dome, in Atlanta, Georgia, on April 6th, with the final on April 8th. There is one team that is making its tournament debut – the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles of Fort Myers, Florida, who won the Atlantic Sun Conference.

Below are the 2 best sites for March Madness scores, game reports, info, etc. -

ESPN – College BK/ home.

CBSsports.com/College BK.

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On the map page, all 68 teams who qualified for the 2013 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament [aka March Madness] are shown. At the far right of the map page are all 68 teams listed alphabetically, with location of their home venue listed, plus their Conference is also noted. At the far right of the map page are the 68 teams’ home attendance data, with 2010-11 average attendance, 2011-12 average attendance, and percent-change from 10/11 to 11/12 [NCAA does not release the current seasons' attendance figures until late April or early May each year]. The asterisks mean that team played to 100%-capacity or above for that season.

There are 5 Division I teams that played to 100 percent-capacity or higher last season, and 4 of them made the 2013 tournament (but the highest-drawing team – the Kentucky Wildcats, did not [Kentucky are perennially the highest-drawing college basketball team in the country (at around 23.5K or so, year- in/year-out, and at 23,721 per game and 100.9 percent-capacity last season)].

Since 2002-03, the Kansas Jayhawks have always sold out their 16,300-capacity Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kansas, and since 2007-08 have sold a a good deal of standing-room-only tickets – last season they drew 16,445 per game for a 100.8 percent-capacity. Kansas, incidentally, have the longest current tournament-qualification-streak – at 24 straight seasons in the tournament (since 1990).

The Michigan State Spartans have been playing to sell-outs at the 14,797-capacity Breslin Center in East Lansing, Michigan since the 1999-2000 season, and most likely also in 2012-13, so let’s call it 14 straight seasons of playing to full capacity for the Spartans at 14,797 per game and a 100.0 percent-capacity.

The Duke Blue Devils are rolling in the endowment money and thus have no reason to expand the capacity of their home venue in Durham, North Carolina because the 9,314-capacity Cameron Indoor Stadium gives them a home-court-atmosphere and an advantage that is the envy of most other college basketball programs. So the third-most-endowed university in the USA is quite happy with the 9,314 average attendance figure and that 100.0 percent-capacity figure that they draw every year – every year since 1988-89, the first season after renovations there increased the capacity of Cameron Indoor Stadium from 8,800 (seated) to 9,314 [in the renovation of 1987-88].

The Gonzaga Bulldogs also boast a real home court advantage in their always-sold-out 6,000-capacity McCarthey Athletic Center in Spokane, Washington; last season, the Gonzaga Bulldogs men’s basketball team finally started selling SRO tickets and ended up drawing 6,212 per game for a 103.5 percent-capacity.

The closest any other teams, which qualified for the 2013 tournament, came to a 100% home capacity in their home games last season were (I am pretty sure): the Wisconsin Badgers (at 99.7 percent-capacity); the Wichita State Shockers (at 98.9 percent-capacity); the Louisville Cardinals (at 97.7 percent-capacity); and the San Diego Aztecs (at 97.4 percent-capacity).
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Thanks to Chris Dobbertean at the Blogging the Bracket site, for bracket forecasts throughout February and early March – http://www.bloggingthebracket.com/.

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘2013 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament‘ .

Thanks to NCAA.org, for the 2010-11 attendance figures {pdf}, ‘http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/ncaa/pdfs/2011/2011+ncaa+mens+basketball+attendance+full+report‘; and the 2011-12 attendance figures {pdf}, ‘http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/ncaa/pdfs/2012/2012+ncaa+mens+basketball+attendance‘.

Team logos from each team’s page at en.wikipedia.org, except for La Salle Explorers’ logo from cbssports.com; Montana Grizzlies’ logo from GoGriz.com; and Temple logo from temple.edu.

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March 11, 2012

2012 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament – the 68 teams – map, team locations and conferences listed / Plus 2010-11 average attendances listed.

Filed under: NCAA Men's Basketball — admin @ 8:20 pm

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The 2012 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is the 74th edition of what has become known as March Madness. The competition began in 1939, with an 8-team field, and was won by the Oregon Ducks, who beat the Ohio State Buckeyes 43-36, at Patten Gynamsium on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. For 2012, the defending champions are the Connecticut Huskies (aka UConn), and the Final Four games including the Final will be played at the Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. This is the second season that the expanded-by-3-teams 68-team format is being used. Last season, one of the teams that played in the first Play-In round made it all the way to the Final Four – the VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University) Rams, of Richmond, VA. So one would have to say that the 68-team format has turned out to be a brilliant innovation, satisfying the clamor for expansion of the tournament, without watering it down and wrecking the perfection that is the 64-team NCAA bracket format. Coach Shaka Smart‘s VCU Rams are back in the tourney this year, but this year they don’t have to get past the Play-In round, and go straight to the Second Round, as a 12th seed. The VCU Rams play the 5th-seeded Wichita State Shockers in Atlanta on Friday night at 7:15 EDT. Before that, the four Play In games will start on Tuesday with 2 games, the next two Play-in games are on Wednesday; and the 64-team Second Round will begin around noon on Thursday, on through to late Friday night.

At the top of this post and below are links for the schedule, as well as results and coverage. One note, you probably will be able to (like the last 2 years) watch all the games from your computer via the second ink (CBS sports).
ESPN – College BK/ home.
CBSsports.com/College BK.

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Qualifying teams by conference can be seen at this link – ‘2012 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament: qualifying teams/Bids by conference‘. Once again, the Big East has the most teams in the tournament, with 9. Permit me a bit of boasting as I mention that tiny St. Bonaventure University’s Bonnies – my favorite college bk team – have made the tournament for the first time in 12 years, on the strength of Senior 6’9” power forward Andrew Nicholson, who hails from Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, and who was voted the 2012 Atlantic-10 Player of the Year. The Bonnies play Florida State on Friday. That makes 4 teams from the Atlantic-10 in this year’s tournament (St. Bonaventure, Saint Louis, Temple, and Xavier) – not too shabby for a mid-major conference.

The state with the most teams in the tournament is North Carolina, with 5 – Davidson, Duke, North Carolina, North Carolina State, and UNC Asheville. Four states have 4 teams in the tournament – California, Kentucky, New York, and Ohio. There are 2 teams that are making their March Madness debuts – the Norfolk State Spartans, of Norfolk, VA; and the South Dakota State Jackrabbits, of Brookings, SD (population 22,000).

The Kansas Jayhawks are the team with the longest current streak of consecutive NCAA tournament appearances – it’s now 23 straight years that the Jayhawks have qualified for the tournament.

Kentucky is the #1 overall seed in the 2012 tournament, and the Kentucky Wildcats are also the team that have been in the tournament the most times (52 times). Here is the list of all-time appearances – ‘NCAA Men’s Division I Tournament bids by school‘.

Announcement: due to health reasons (pinched nerve in shoulder), I will be cutting back on content output.

Thanks to the Blogging the Bracket site, for bracket forecasts throughout February and early March – http://www.bloggingthebracket.com/.
Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘2012 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament‘.
Thanks to NCAA.org, for the 2011 attendance figures, ‘2011 NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL ATTENDANCE
(For All NCAA Men’s Varsity Teams)‘.

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March 20, 2011

2011 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, Regional Semifinals (aka the Sweet Sixteen) – 16 teams, with average attendances.

Filed under: NCAA Men's Basketball — admin @ 10:40 pm

2011 March Madness, Sweet Sixteen map

I wonder if there are any current examples of March Madness predictions all being correct up to the Sweet Sixteen right now – in other words, a still-perfect bracket. I saw where it was said there were 9.2 quintillion possibilities for possible winners in a 64-team bracket {see this}. Last year, on ESPN radio it was mentioned that after just the first 16 games (in the round of 64) were played, there were only 56 still-perfect brackets out of 4.8 million on-line brackets filled out – and that was after just 16 out of 16 games correctly picked. By this time in the tournament – the start of the Sweet Sixteen round – it’s 56 games you have to pick correctly, and it goes up to 60 games before the Regional Finals round (when there are 8 teams left). After that, there’s 7 more games. The total number of games in the tournament, counting the 2 Play-in games, is 65 games (for the 68-team field). The odds for a perfect bracket is one in 147,573,952,589,676,412,928 {see this, ‘”Perfectly Improbable: A flawless NCAA bracket“, by James A. Russell at the Kansas City Star}.
There are no documented cases of anyone ever filling out a perfect bracket.
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There are three states with 2 teams still alive…North Carolina, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The 2 teams from North Carolina are – the Duke Blue Devils and the North Carolina Tar Heels. The 2 teams from Virginia, both from the city of Richmond, are – the Richmond Spiders and the VCU Rams. The 2 teams from Wisconsin are – the Marquette Golden Eagles and the Wisconsin Badgers. The biggest upset was probably the #8th-seeded Butler Bulldogs (from Indianapolis, Indiana) over #1-seeded Pitt. But those two 11th-seed teams, Marquette and VCU also had big upsets over Syracuse and Purdue, respectively. This is VCU’s first appearance in the Sweet Sixteen.
Upsets in the 3rd Round (round of 32 teams) -
#11-seed Marquette Golden Eagles over #3-seed Syracuse, by 4 points.
#11-seed VCU Rams over #3-seed Purdue, by 18 points (!).
#10-seed Florida State Seminoles over #2-seed Notre Dame by 14 points (!).
#8-seed Butler Bulldogs over #1-seed Pitt, by 1 point.
#5-seed Arizona Wildcats over #4-seed Texas, by 1 point.
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Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship‘.Attendances from NCAA.org, here

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March 18, 2011

2011 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, 3rd Round (32 teams), with team attendances.

Filed under: NCAA Men's Basketball — admin @ 9:19 pm

2011 March Madness map, round of 32

CBS Sports/College BK home.
ESPN/College Basketball home.

Photo credit- Justin Edmonds/Getty Images via sportsillustrated.cnn.com, here.

The big upset in the Second Round (round of 64) was in a match-up between two teams from Kentucky, with the #13-seeded Morehead State Eagles beating the #4-seeded Louisville Cardinals by one point, courtesy of a three-pointer with 5.4 seconds left by Morehead State senior guard Demonte Harper.
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I found out that, going by the accumulated 26-year Tournament history of all round of 64 pairings, there was about a 1-in-5 chance that a 13th-seeded team would defeat a 4th-seeded team. [the numbers being based on results since the Tournament expanded to a 64-team field, in 1985]. Statistically, it was a 21.15 percent chance that the #13 would beat the #4 seed. This section of the ‘NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship’ page at en.wikipedia has a list of all the outcomes of the round of 64 teams’ pairings…(‘First-round games/Upsets‘).

I decided to just go ahead and update that list to include the 2011 Second Round (round of 64) results.
Below is the List of results in terms of the Seedings in the modern-era/round of 64 teams, in the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament (1985-2011)…

As you can see, the results follow a mathematical curve with 2 deviations, or anomalies…
1). There are slightly less #5th-seeded teams winning over their #12th-seeded opponents than the next set of pairings (which is 6th seed vs. 11th seed).
2). An occurrence of the #9-seeded teams beating the #8-seeded teams more times in total (6 more times over 108 games).
My interpretation…
#5 vs. #12 anomaly – [The 12th-seeded teams beating their #5th-seeded opponents more times total than the next category (of 11th-seed vs. 6th-seed).] I would say that is just an example of how difficult it actually is to evaluate a team’s actual strength, and that in a few more seasons, that 12-seed-versus-5-seed statistical blip will even out (as it started to do this season, with only one of the four 12th-vs. 5th seed outcomes – Richmond over Vanderbilt – going to the 12th-seeded team).
#8 vs. #9 anomaly – How much difference, strength-wise, will there be between any given #8 team versus any given #9 team? There will be very little difference. So the psychological aspect then kicks in, with the players on the #9 team taking their slightly-lower status as a “diss”, and taking it out on their #8-seeded opponent, and pulling off a slight upset.
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First Round upsets…
#13-seed Morehead Eagles over # 4-seed Louisville, by 1 point.
#12-seed Richmond Spiders over #5-seed Vanderbilt, by 3 points.
#11-seed Gonzaga Bulldogs over #6-seed St. John’s, by 15 points.
#11-seed VCU Rams over #6-seed Georgetown, by 18 points (!).
#10-seed Florida State Seminoles over #7-seed Texas A&M, by 7 points.
#9-seed Illinois Fighting Illini over #8-seed UNLV, by 11 points.
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Here are some lowest-seeding milestones in NCAA Basketball Tournament history…
Lowest-seeded team to win an NCAA Basketball Tournament title – 8th-seeded Villanova Wildcats, in 1985.
Lowest-seeded team to make it to the Final Four – 11th-seeded LSU Tigers in 1986.
Lowest-seeded team to make the Regional Finals (aka Elite Eight) – Missouri Tigers in 2002.
Lowest-seeded team to make it to the Regional Semifinals (aka the Sweet Sixteen) – [tie] 14th seed – Cleveland State Vikings in 1986, and Chattanooga Mocs in 1997.
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Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia,org, ‘2010 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament‘.
Attendances from NCAA.org, here.

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March 16, 2011

2011 NCAA Basketball Tournament, Second Round map (64 teams), with team attendances.

Filed under: NCAA Men's Basketball — admin @ 8:56 pm

Click on image below for the full-page map of the ’2011 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, Second Round (64 teams), with team attendances’…

2011 March Madness, Second Round map (32 teams)

CBS Sports/College BK home.
ESPN/College Basketball home.

I have to admit that I was so caught up in getting the 68-team Tournament map out as quickly as I could, that I failed to notice how the new expanded field of 68, and the Play-in games, have messed with traditional Tournament bracket pools and March Madness picks. That is because 4 of the 8 teams in the Play-in games are not 16th-seeds, but instead are 11th or 12th seeds. Most everyone who follows the NCAA Basketball Tournament knows no 16th seed has ever beaten a #1 seed, so putting 4 significantly higher seeds in the preliminaries, and having one of those games end close to midnight (Eastern Time), just over 12 hours before the 64-team field begins play the following day…well, that has turned the process of being in a Tournament bracket pool from a fun thing to something more like a chore. Because if you are serious about winning the bracket pool you’re in, you probably want to have that USC-or-VCU spot down correctly, and not just guess on it, since it looks like most Tournament bracket pools are by-passing the Play-in games, yet most Tournament bracket pools’ deadlines will still be on Thursday morning. That means the bracket-player on the East Coast who doesn’t want to risk starting the Tournament bracket pool already-one-result-wrong has to stay up until almost midnight, find out who won that last Play-in game, then rush to submit that bracket by the next morning. Like I said, it’s more like work than play now to be in a Tournament bracket pool – on the East Coast, at least. Why couldn’t the NCAA have the 11th and 12th seed Play-in games on Tuesday? I mean, they know how many people are involved in Tournament bracket pools. Who’s kidding who – bracket pools made the Tournament what it is today.
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The map shows the 64 team field. On the far right of the map page are all the 68 teams’ average attendances from last season (2009-10 season). [I would have listed 2010-11 average attendances, but the NCAA does not release the current-season attendance figures until May]. I decided to include the attendances of the 4 teams that were eliminated in the Play-in round…they are listed in light gray, and their logos have been removed from the map itself. In the next two maps – the map of Third Round (32 teams); and the map of the Regional Semifinals, aka Sweet Sixteen (16 teams), I will continue this procedure.
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Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia,org, ‘2010 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament‘.
Attendances from NCAA.org, here.

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March 13, 2011

2011 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament – the 68 teams, with list of all-time appearances by team.

Filed under: NCAA Men's Basketball — admin @ 5:50 pm

2011 March Madness map/all 68 teams
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The map page shows all 68 teams that have qualified for or have been selected for the 2011 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. The teams’ names, city or town location, and conference affiliation are listed at the far right. The map shows team locations. At the far left, all the teams are listed with respect to how many Tournament appearances they have made, all-time. Also in that list are each team’s previous appearance in the Tournament, and each team’s NCAA Basketball Tournament titles (with the year of their last title denoted).
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The states with the most teams in the 2011 Tournament are: Pennsylvania and Virginia.
The 5 Pennsylvania teams…Bucknell, Penn State, Pitt, Temple, and Villanova. The Bucknell Bison are from Lewisburg, which is in the sparsely-populated hills of east-central Pennsylvania, and has a population of just 5,620 {2000 figure}.
The 5 Virginia teams…George Mason, Hampton, Old Dominion, Richmond, and Virginia Commonwealth University. The VCU Rams and the Richmond Spiders are both from the city of Richmond, which has a city population of around 204,000 and a metro-area population of around 1.2 million {2010 figure}.
California, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, and Tennessee have 4 teams each in the Tournament.
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#1 seeds are:
Ohio State [in the East Region].
Kansas [in the Southwest Region].
Pittsburgh [in the Southeast region]
Duke [in the West Region].
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The newly-instituted Play-In games comprise 8 teams playing in 4 games over a two-day period, in Dayton, Ohio. The 8 Play-in teams/games are:
Tuesday -
UNC Asheville vs. Arkansas-Little Rock [16th-seeded teams].
UAB vs. Clemson [12th-seeded teams].

Wednesday -
Texas-San Antonio vs. Alabama State [11th-seeded teams].
USC ) vs. VCU [16th-seeded teams].
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First round begins at 12:15pm ET on Thursday, with the winner of the UAB/Clemson game vs. West Virginia. By Thursday morning, I will have a map of the field of 64, with 2010 average attendances for each team listed.
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Thanks to the Bracketology 101 blog.
Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org…
‘2011 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament‘.
‘NCAA Men’s Division I Tournament bids by school‘.

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February 22, 2011

NCAA Basketball: The Big Ten Conference – Conference map, with venues, capacities, and 2009-10 average attendances; and teams’ Big Ten titles and NCAA Tournament histories.

Filed under: NCAA Men's Basketball,NCAA/bk->Big Ten — admin @ 11:26 am

2010-11 Big Ten Basketball

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ESPN/NCAA Basketball.
Big Ten standings at ESPN site, here.
Big Ten athletics site/2011 Big Ten Men’s Basketball Tournament, here.

AP Poll (from ESPN site).
The AP poll for Week 16 (Feb. 21) has Duke #1 (up from 5th), Ohio State #2 (=), Kansas #3 (down from 1st), Pitt #4 (=), and Texas #5 (down from 4th). [Btw, the San Diego State Azrecs are #6, so one might want to keep an eye on that Cinderella story.] Other Big Ten teams beside Ohio State in the top 25 are: Purdue at #8, and Wisconsin at #12.

Bracketology column by Shawn Siegel at CollegeHoops.net, from Feb. 21, here. Siegel projects these 5 Big Ten teams into the Tournament, if the season ended now…a #1 seed: Ohio State; a #2 seed: Purdue; a #4 seed; Wisconsin; a #10 seed: Illinois; and a #12 seed: Michigan State.

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The Big Ten has existed as a sporting institution since 1896. The original sport the conference teams competed in was, of course, gridiron football. The first season that basketball was featured as a competition was in 1905-06. That makes this the 106th season of Big Ten Basketball. The first champion was Wisconsin, who went 6-1 in 1905-06. For the first 92 seasons, the regular season winner was champion (and there were several instances of dual champions or three-way co-champions). The Big Ten took a long time to finally get around to having a tournament to decide their basketball champion…not until 1998. The first champion of the Big Ten Basketball Tournament was Michigan, but that title has been vacated by the NCAA, because of a string of violations that fall under the aegis of The University of Michigan basketball scandal. Titles and statistics listed in the profile boxes on the map page all call into account the vacated titles and statistics of each team…besides Michigan, five other Big ten schools’ basketball programs have run afoul of NCAA regulations…Illinois; Michigan State; Ohio State; Purdue; and Wisconsin have also had Big Ten basketball titles and/or statistics vacated.
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The Big Ten Conference Men’s Basketball Tournament is held at a neutral site. In 2008, the tournament began a five-year residence at the Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. [Indianapolis is 52 miles (83 km.) from Bloomington, Indiana where the Indiana Hoosiers are located.] Ohio State won the 2010 Big Ten Tournament, beating Minnesota by 39 points.
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As far as national championships go, there are five Big Ten basketball teams with NCAA Basketball Tournament titles. [The NCAA Basketball Tournament began in 1939.] Top of the list in the Big Ten is Indiana, who have won 5 national basketball titles (their last in 1987), putting the Hoosiers tied for third on the all-time list. [The top 4 are: UCLA -11 titles; North Carolina - 7 titles; Indiana and Duke - 5 titles.] The other Big Ten teams which have won NCAA Basketball Tournament titles are…Michigan State, with 2 titles (last in 2000); Michigan, in 1989; Ohio State, in 1960; and Wisconsin, in 1941.

A noteworthy present-day achievement of a Big Ten basketball program is Michigan State’s 12 consecutive selections for NCAA Tournament bids. The Spartans’ dozen-straight March Madness appearances (1999 to 2010) is the third-longest active streak, behind only Kansas (with 21 straight March Madness appearances), and Duke (with 15 straight March Madness appearances),
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A brief history of the Big Ten…
The Conference was not officially called the Big Ten until 1987. Before that, its official name was The Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives, but it had been popularly known as the Big Nine, then the Big Ten, almost throughout it’s whole history.The Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives was founded on February 8, 1896. It was the first collegiate sports conference in the United States. The conference initially (for 3 years or so) became known as the Western Conference. It’s original schools were Chicago, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Northwestern, Purdue, and Wisconsin.
In 1899, Indiana and Iowa joined, and the conference became popularly known as the Big Nine.
Michigan left the conference in 1908 (for a time); Ohio State joined in 1913. When Michigan re-joined in November 1917, the conference started to be known as the Big Ten.
The University of Chicago decided to de-emphasize athletics, and their football team left the conference in 1939. By 1946, that school’s athletic program was out of the conference entirely, and the conference once again became known as the Big Nine. Three years later, 1949, Michigan State joined, and it was the Big Ten again.

Again, throughout this whole time, the conference was still officially known as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives. The conference did not shed this anachronistic name until 1987, when the Big Ten was incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation. Three years later, in 1990, Penn State joined, making the conference an 11 team organization, but it was decided to keep the name Big Ten (after all, it’s foolish to mess with an established brand name}. The conference slyly acknowledged their then-11 school make-up, though, by having a logo which showed the number 11, in the blank spaces to either side of the T in Ten [you can see that logo at the lower left on the map page].
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Ex-Big 12 school Nebraska is now set to join the Big Ten, and the conference has a new logo {here}. A lot of people hate it, but I am reserving my hate for the ridiculous names that the conference has given for their two new football divisions…Legends and Leaders. Legends and Leaders? Sentimental hogwash. Those names are just embarrassing. From the Big Lead, Dec. 13, 2010, ‘New Big Ten Division Names Are “Legends” and “Leaders,” Awful.’ From ESPN, via AP, Dec.17,2010, ‘Big Ten may rethink Legends, Leaders‘.

Nebraska doesn’t join Big Ten sports until each sport’s 2011 season. Currently, this is the 2010-11 season in college basketball. But in anticipation of this, I decided to include a profile box for the Nebraska Cornhuskers’ basketball team. Their profile box is at the far lower right of the map page.

Each team’s profile box includes…primary logo; full name of school; location of main campus, basketball venue; year of the school’s establishment; year of the establishment of the school’s varsity basketball team; undergraduate enrollment; Big Ten Basketball titles (and year of last title); seasons spent in Big Ten Basketball; NCAA Basketball Tournament titles (and year of last title); NCAA Final Four appearances (and year of last Final Four appearance), and total number of NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances (and year of last appearance). Plus I squeezed in each team’s coach, and years he has spent coaching there. Then there is an interior photo of the team’s arena. Above the photo is the team’s 2009-10 average home attendance. Finally, I have included a photo of the team’s most recent away basketball jersey that I could find. I stuck with away jerseys. Some schools don’t even seem to make their men’s basketball team’s home white jerseys avialable for purchase on the Internet. The one exception was for Purdue – I used Purdue’s alternate, old gold-colored jersey.

On the map are the city locations of the teams. At the lower left of the map page are the final standings for 2010 Big Ten Basketball; a listing of the 4 Big Ten teams that were nationally ranked by the AP last season (Ohio at #5, Purdue at #10, Michigan State at #13, and Wisconsin at #16); as well as a listing of the Big Ten teams that qualified for the 2010 NCAA Basketball Tournament (the aforementioned 4 teams plus Minnesota), their seeding in the tournament, and how far the team went in the tournament. As mentioned, the Ohio State Buckeyes won the 2010 Big Ten Basketball Tournament, beating Minnesota. That’s the 2nd Big Ten Tournament victory for Ohio state in 4 seasons. The Big Ten team that had the most successful March Madness run was Tom Izzo’s Michigan State Spartans, who made it to the Final Four, losing to Butler by 2 points in the Semifinal.

At the very bottom left of the map page are 2009-10 average home attendances, venue capacities, and percent capacities. Wisconsin not only led Big Ten Basketball in attendance, but the Badgers had the 6th-highest average attendance nationwide in NCAA basketball in 2009-10. Wisconsin also played to sell-out crowds every game, making them one of only 6 college basketball programs to play to full capacity last season. [The other 5 teams that played to 100%-capacity or higher last season were Kentucky, Kansas, the Big Ten's Michigan State, Duke, and Gonzaga.] {My 2009-10 NCAA Basketball attendance map, here.}

Photo credits -
Illinois…Assembly Hall photo by Mark Jones, at Illini official site, here. Jersey, http://www.fightingillini.com/view.gal?id=85131.
Indiana…Assembly Hall photo from iuhoosiers.cstv.com, here. Jersey from hoosierteamstore.com, here.
Iowa…Carver-Hawkeye Arena photo by Dan O’Brien at his blog IllinoisLoyalty.com, from this post. Jersey from CollegeBasketballStore.com, here.
Michigan…Crisler Arena photo from Sports-Venues.info/College Basketball Arenas, here. Jersey from CollegeBasketballStore.com, here.
Michigan State…Breslin Events Center photo from aubzim.wordpress.com, here. Jersey from CollegeBasketballStore.com, here.
Minnesota…Williams Arena photo by Dlz28 at en.wikipedia.org, here. Jersey at FootballFanatics.com, here.

Northwestern…Welsh-Ryan Arena photo from ReplayPhotos.com, here. Jersey from FootballFanatics.com, here.
Ohio State…Schottenstein Center photo from BuckeyeBanter.com, ‘Was building the Schottenstein Center a big Mistake‘.
Penn State…Bryce Jordan Center photo from VisitPennState.org, here. Jersey from CollegeBasketballStore.com, here.
Purdue…Mackey Arena photo from Purdue University via Bloomberg Businessweek site, ‘Purdue: A Virtual Tour‘. Jeresey from CollegeBasketballStore.com, here.
Wisconsin…Kohl center photo by Pbrown111 at en.wikipedia.org, here. Jersey from CollegeBasketballStore.com, here.

Nebraska…Bob Devaney Sports Center photo from Huskers.com, here. Jersey from CollegeBasketballStore.com, here.

Thanks to Big Ten athletics official site, Men’s Basketball page, here.

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February 3, 2011

NCAA Basketball: The ACC – Conference map, with venues, capacities, and 2009-10 average attendances; and teams’ ACC titles and NCAA tournament histories.

Filed under: NCAA Men's Basketball,NCAA/bk->ACC — admin @ 3:27 pm

ACC Basketball, 2011

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ESPN/NCAA Basketball.
ACC Standings.
AP Top 25 (Jan.31).
Jeff Sagarin NCAA basketball ratings (USA Today.com)…by team
by Conference.
Ohio State are the only undefeated team in the country, and of course are #1. Kansas is #2, at 20-1. Texas is #3 at 18-3. Pitt is #4 at 20-2. Duke is #5 (down from 3rd, last week), at 19-2. Reigning national champs Duke’s first loss snapped a 25 game winning streak, and it was to unranked fellow ACC member Floride State, on January 12th. The Florida State Seminoles, under coach Leonard Hamilton, have qualified for March Madness in 2009 and 2010, and are now making an early case for a tournament bid in 2011.
Duke’s second loss came last weekend, away at Madison Square Garden in New York City, to St. John’s. St. John’s are 5-5 in the Big East this season and unranked, while Duke are 7-1 in the ACC this season, so it was a significant upset, especially since St. John’s beat the Blue Devils by a 15-point margin, 93-78…Jan. 30, – AP via ESPN.go.com, ‘St. John’s stymies No. 3 Duke to reel off 3rd ranked win’. It was Duke’s largest margin of defeat versus an unranked opponent in 15 seasons.

If you glance at the Sagarin ratings by conference, you will see that this season, as far as the top 10 conferences go, the ACC is slipping towards a more mediocre rating, at 4th best conference, with the Big East and the Big Ten ascending, to be first and second rated, and the Mountain West gaining the most (3) places, into fifth rated.
Sagarin Conference ratings (and comparison to their final 2009-10 Sagarin ratings) 1st through 10th best rated conferences are…
1st, Big East (up from 3rd in 2009-10).
2nd, Big Ten (up from 4th in 2009-10).
3rd, Big 12 (down from 1st in 2009-10).
4th, ACC (down from 2nd in 2009-10).
5th, Mountain West (up from 8th in 2009-10).
6th, SEC (down from 5th in 2009-10).
7th, Pac-10 (down from 6th in 2009-10).
8th, Conference USA (up from 10th in 2009-10).
9th, Atlantic 10 (down from 7th in 2009-10).
10th, Horizon (up from 12th in 2009-10).
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In Men’s Basketball, the ACC features two of the most successful college basketball programs in the United States – North Carolina (with 5 national championships, last in 2009) and Duke (with 4 national championships, including the 2010 title). The ACC also has amongst its members two other teams that have won national basketball championships: North Carolina State (with 2 championships, their last in 1983), and Maryland (who won their title in 2004). The North Carolina Tar Heels’ 5 titles puts them tied for third-best all-time (with Indiana) [UCLA is top with 11 titles, and Kentucky has the second-most titles, with 7]…’NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship/Winners‘ (en.wikipedia.org). NC and Duke are also at the top of the list of all-time-most Final Four appearances {see this}. North Carolina has made it to the Final Four an impressive 18 times (tied with UCLA for most), while Duke has the third-most Final Four appearances, with 15.
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The Atlantic Coast Conference is known almost universally as the ACC. The ACC came about as a result of a mass exodus of 7 then-members of the Southern Conference in 1953. Clemson, Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina, and Wake Forest were those 7 schools. The 7 left primarily because of the Southern Conference’s ban on post-season play (ie, college football Bowl games). Bylaws were ratified for the Atlantic Coast Conference in June, 1953. In December, 1953 an 8th school joined – Virginia, from the Metro Conference. In early 1954, the first season of ACC Basketball began. Unlike, say, the Big Ten [which is my next map in this series], the ACC has always had a Basketball Tournament to decide the conference champion.

The make-up of the ACC remained static for 19 years, until 1971, when South Carolina left to become an Independent (South Carolina is now in the SEC). The ACC operated with 7 members until 1978, when Georgia Tech joined from the Metro Conference. The total number of member schools reached nine with the addition of Florida State, also formerly from the Metro Conference, in July 1991. This 9 school set-up lasted until 2004/05, when there was a big shake-up within the ACC and the Big East…Miami and Virginia Tech jumped from the Big East to the ACC in 2004, and Boston College followed suit in 2005. The latter school’s presence making it the first occasion of an ACC member-school being from north of the Mason-Dixon line. That made it 12 teams in the ACC, and that is how it has remained. The make-up of the two divisions, Atlantic and Coastal, can be seen on the map page, with the teams’ profile boxes split up by division, and arranged top to bottom alphabetically.
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On the map page, team profile boxes are at the right. Each team’s profile box includes…primary logo; full name of school; location of main campus, basketball venue; year of the school’s establishment; year of the establishment of the school’s varsity basketball team; undergraduate enrollment; ACC Basketball titles (and year of last title); seasons spent in ACC Basketball; NCAA Basketball Tournament titles (and year of last title); NCAA Final Four appearances (and year of last Final Four appearance), and total number of NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances (and year of last appearance). Plus I squeezed in each team’s coach, and years he has spent coaching there. Then there is an interior photo of the team’s arena. Above the team’s arena photo is listed their 2009-10 avergae attendance. Finally, I have included a photo of the team’s most recent away basketball jersey that I could find. I stuck with away jerseys, out of both aesthetic reasons (white jerseys being bland and boring), and frankly, out of necessity, because some schools don’t even seem to make their men’s basketball team’s home white jerseys available for purchase on the Internet (and I am not going to spend my time cobbling together home white jerseys out of blank jersey templates, logos, segments of photos, and my drawing program, like I was forced to do with two teams, Rutgers and Providence, on my Big East basketball map {here}. The one exception ended up being with Maryland – I used Maryland’s alternate, yellow-with-red-and-black-trim jersey (it was the only jersey they sell – they aren’t wearing red away jerseys this year, but instead, black; and they are wearing their yellow jerseys often – home and away).

On the map itself are the city locations of the teams. At the lower left of the map page are the final standings for 2010 ACC Basketball; a listing of the 2 ACC teams that were nationally ranked by the AP (Duke at #3 and Maryland at #20); as well as a listing of the 6 ACC teams that qualified for the 2010 NCAA Basketball Tournament (Duke, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Wake Forest, Clemson, and Florida State), their seeding in the tournament, and how far the team went in the tournament. As mentioned, Mike Krzyzewski’s Duke went all the way to win Duke’s fourth national championship (it was Coach K’s fourth national title with Duke as well). The Blue Devils were just able to fend off Cinderella-team Butler in the March Madness final, by a 61-59 score. Before that, Duke had also won the ACC Tournament, beating Georgia Tech 65-61 in the ACC final.
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At the lower left of the map page are 2009-10 average home attendances, venue capacities, and percent capacities of ACC teams. {source – pdf of 2009-10 NCAA basketball attendance (NCAA.org)}. The best-drawing team in the ACC in 2009-10 was, once again, North Carolina, who averaged 17,786 per game. But the Tar Heels had a real poor season by their standards, not even qualifying for March Madness, and were only able to fill the 21,750-capacity Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill, NC to a 81.8% capacity. Maryland had the second-best attendance in the ACC last season, pulling in an average of 16,792 per game, to a respectable 93.6% capacity at the ComCast Center in College Park, MD. Best percent capacity was, of course, Duke, who once again played to 100% capacity in their small, raucous, and visitor-unfriendly Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, NC. If you are wondering why a college basketball program as prominent as Duke only plays in a 9,314-seat arena, well, Duke athletics certainly does not need to rely on ticket sales to keep their sports programs viable…Duke is a private university with an endowment at $4.8 billion , making the school the tihird-most-endowed school in the US [#1 is Michigan, #2 is Columbia]. This flush state of affairs for the school was the initial result of tobacco money from the Duke Endowment, which saw the school change it’s name from Trinity College to Duke University in 1924. Besides, if Duke built a larger arena they would very likely wreck their home-court vibe and run the risk of not selling out games. Because after all, Duke, in Durham, is just 11 miles away from Chapel Hill and the North Carolina Tar Heels, and NC definitely has a larger fan base.
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Photo credits -
Boston College…Conte Forum photo from bceagles.cstv.com/conte-forum-info, here. Jersey, at store.cstv.com/Boston College online store, here.
Clemson…Littlejohn Coliseum photo from clemsontigers.cstv.com/facilities, here. Jersey from store.cstv.com, here.
Duke…Cameron Indoor Stadium photo, submitted by en1044 at Sktscrapercity.com/forums thread ‘USA – College Basketball Arenas’, here.
Florida State…{note, thanks to NoleFan.org for date of est. of FSU bk}. Donald L. Tucker Center photo from seminoles.com/facilities, here (full panorama image). Jersey from seminoles.com/shop, here.
Georgia Tech…Alexander Memorial Coliseum photo, Getty Images at Daylife.com, here. Jersey at ramblinwreckstore.com.
Maryland…Comcast Center photo by Mike Haw at flickr.com, here. Jersey from store.cstv.com, here.
Miami…Bank United center photo from hurricanesports.cstv.com, here. Jersey from shopmiamihurricanes.com, here.
North Carolina…Dean Smith Center photo from tarheelblue.cstv.com/Inside Arthletics/Facilities, here. Jersey from store.cstv.com, here.
North Carolina State…RBC Center photo by User B at en.wikipedia.org, here. Jersey from store.cstv.com, here.
Virginia…John Paul Jones Arena photo from the University of Virginia vioa ESPN, here. Jersey from FootballFanatics.com, here.
Virginia Tech…Cassell Coliseum photo submitted by en1044 at Skyscrapercity.com/forums thread ‘USA – College Basketball Arenas’, here. Jersey from CollegeBasketballStore, here.
Wake Forest…photo of “The Joel” from Sportsposterwarehouse.com, here. Jersey from College BasketballStore.com, here.

Thanks to the contributors at en.wikipedia.org, ‘Atlantic Coast Conference‘.
Thanks to NCAA.org, for attendance figures.

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