Week 8 NCAA Basketball Attendance: Highs and Lows

Christmas break: time for neutral sites, which help inflate the attendance numbers a bit. But for those schools that aren’t major enough to play in a neutral site rivalry type game, it is hard to draw a crowd. This is reflected in the poor attendance numbers at the bottom of the pile this week.

Number of games drawing fewer than 1,000 fans: 22

The lowest 3 attended games?

3. Iona vs Akron – This one took place in Las Vegas, in an off-the-strip casino’s arena. No surprise that Ionians and Akronians had no desire to fly across the country on the week of Christmas to see the 4-6 Iona Gaels take on the 9-2 Zips. No surprises in this one, as 225 people already knew, the Zips took the win over the Gaels, 78-64

2. St. Peters vs St. Francis (NY edition) – Christmas in the Yanitelli Center in Jersey City was pretty sparse, and even the reported 131 seems to be inflated:

I suspect most of the folks got the memo, the game ended up being terrible, with both teams barely shooting above 35%. Peter beats Francis 56-45 and ten dozen people actively begin questioning what they’re doing with their life.

1. Morgan State vs Rider – Morgan State “wins” again this week, after last week’s miserable showing of 126, they convinced two more friends to attend this week, getting them 128 in attendance against Rider. The Bears ended up getting destroyed by the Rider Broncs, which could harm future Morgan State attendance numbers. We will wait with baited breath.

Biggest group of people to see a loss at home this week: Oakland (vs Michigan State ), 20,228, neutral site game.  True-ish home game: Alabama (vs Oregon), 14,508, game was played in Birmingham instead of Tuscaloosa. True on-campus home game: Cincinnati (vs Iowa State), 13,176.

Smallest group of people to see a win at home this week: St. Peters (vs St. Francis (NY)), 131.

Smallest Power Conference attendance: USC (vs Lafayette), 3,215.

Average attendance this week: 6,080 (up 1,012 (20%) over last week)

And of course, your full attendance numbers by game: