NCAA Basketball Attendance Week 11: Highs and Lows of the week!

The semester is now in full swing across the nation, giving tons of fans of [INSERT YOUR SCHOOL HERE] no excuses as to why they drew so poorly. Despite what fans of [INSERT YOUR SCHOOL HERE] think, I have nothing against the fine people of [INSERT YOUR SCHOOL HERE].  Anyway, let’s take a look at the numbers this week.

Number of games drawing fewer than 1,000 fans: 14

The three lowest attended games of the week? NOW WITH BONUS FOURTH GAME OF THE WEEK ¹

4. New Orleans vs Incarnate Word – The Cardinals of Incarnate Word have only been in Division 1 since 2013, which may explain the lack of general interest in the Big Easy to see them come in to town. A mere 481 came out to the Costello Athletic Center to see the home Privateers lose on a buzzer beater to Incarnate Word, 71-68.  The good news in all this (for me at least) is that UNO has a photo gallery of every game. Here are a few action shots:

And my personal favorite:

This is over 5% of the crowd in one picture.

3. Chicago State vs CSU Bakersfield – In the Windy City, meanwhile, few came out to see the Cougars of Chicago State take on another new-to-D1 school in CSU Bakersfield, who joined in 2010. Only 450 were announced, which may have been made worse by the fact that the official Chicago State men’s basketball Twitter account has not tweeted since March of last year. Somewhere, Rovell has a sharp pain in his side due to someone’s mismanagement of their #Brand. However, to be fair, the weather in Chicago was less than adequate that night, as the CSU Bakersfield team learned the hard way:

Chicago down to 1 degree. Bus wouldnt start before game. 3 ubers, 1 cab, n 40 minute game later we got the road win! pic.twitter.com/TNyiGq71ep

— CSUB Men’s Hoops (@CSUB_MBB) January 12, 2016

The Roadrunners of CSU-B took this one 67-56 for the record, and are tied for the conference lead of the WAC with Grand Canyon (my how the WAC has fallen).

2. UMass-Lowell vs Maine – Yet another new-to-Division-1 team, this time as the hosts. The River Hawks of UMass-Lowell joined in 2013, and are still transitioning, and thus unable to play in the postseason until the 2018 NCAA Tournament. I don’t think that will be a concern as the Black Bears of Maine won handily by a score of 95-81.  A whopping 443 filled the Costello Athletic Center.

1. St. Peter’s vs Marist – This one happened on Sunday, and is still the highest “lowest attendance game” of the year, drawing 321 spectators. Those spectators were treated to a victory as the Peacocks of St Peter’s ended up winning by 9 over the Red Foxes of Marist. Congratulations to St. Peter’s, you’re the best of the worst (so far)!!! #MAACtion

Here’s the miscellany for the week:

Biggest group of people to see a loss at home this week: Creighton (vs Providence), 17,073.

Smallest group of people to see a win at home this week: St. Peters (vs Marist), 321.

Smallest Power Conference attendance: Virginia Tech (vs Wake Forest), 4,985.

Average attendance this week: 5,894 (up 1,522 (34.8%) over last week)

And of course, your full attendance numbers:

1. Because I thought I was smart by writing this up on Sunday morning and got burned by St. Peters