The Holy Land of Hoops

I think this stat was developed before last night, but of the six major conferences, the Big East is last in conference home court wins at 56%. The A-10 is tops at 72% followed by the SEC at 70%. [Last night's Big East games would have maintained or somewhat lowered this figure.]

Anyone have thoughts as to why there is a relative lack of home court advantage?

Is there any correlation between the conference home winning percentage and attendance for the teams? For example, Creighton has the largest home crowds in the conference and has not lost a home game. Marquette has good crowds and has come pretty close to holding serve at home. 'Nova seems to generally have good crowds, close to holding serve.

I have no idea if the data would bear it out, but it seems to me that a lot of the games I've watched where home teams have lost have been ones where the home crowd was pretty sparse. This could be a corollary to that notion of most of our conference teams playing in places with a variety of options for entertainment, etc., vs. some of the other conferences being in smaller markets with more likelihood of higher fan attendance relative to the community, etc.

Maybe?

I don't have time to dig up numbers but it seems like Butler has had good crowds and still has lost home games. Other than them I would agree.

Generally, good teams have good attendance. At this point in the season it is difficult to compare home winning percentages as certain teams have hosted the best teams at home (e.g. SHU has played both Creighton and VU at home only). I suspect that the Pirates will win a higher percentage of home games in the 2nd half of its schedule as it will not be hosting the elite teams. Time will tell.

It's actually not a new thing....

last 7 years:
62.5 2008 15
59.7 2009 24
60.4 2010 18
59.7 2011 18
61.8 2012 14
60.7 2013 16
56.2 2014 24

so we're maybe 1-2 games worse this year compared to normal last 6 years.

What is amazing about home court advantage- had 8 BE games go to OT this year. Road team is 7-1 in those games. In regulation- home team is 26-14 (65%).

I think it just speaks to the competitiveness of the conference. For the last 5 years in the BE the %s have been 60.7%, 61.8%, 59.7%, 60.4%, and 59.7%.

It's a competitive league where anyone can beat anyone.

I'm also curious about teams like St. John's that have two different home courts. Do SJU fans feel like they have a bigger home court advantage at the smaller venue, vs. MSG -- or vice-versa -- or does it make no difference?

The Big East has never been a conference of "on campus arenas". Seton Hall, St. John's, Georgetown, Villanova, Providence, DePaul & Marquette all play their games, or most of their games at pro arenas. St. John's and Villanova occasionally play some conference games at their on campus arenas but the big games are at MSG or Wells Fargo. I think this is a factor. When you play at pro arenas that seat close to 15-20K, it's easier for opposing fans to get tickets as well as get to the venue. Getting to MSG by mass transit is very easy since it's practically at Penn Station, same with the Prudential Center in Newark. Ever try to get to these schools by public transportation, it's not fun.

St. John's has a much bigger home advantage at Carnesecca than they do at MSG. There are fewer road fans, the students are closer to the court and, most importantly, we play the weaker opponents there. There is less of a home advantage at MSG because many opposing fans pack the place. Syracuse has more fans there than we do. Uconn (in the past), Georgetown, as well as Nova, have a great number of fans there. It is a large city with lots of alumni from those schools and it is easy to travel to. A trip to a game at MSG is often viewed by fans as part of a vacation to NYC. That's why neutral site tournaments do so well there.

Good point RD, but it's not just St. John's that has to deal with that. Syracuse & UConn fans always filled up opposing teams arenas. They have (and still do) travel well to Villanova, DC for the G'Town game and even Providence & Seton Hall, for the same reasons as St. John's...it's easy to get to and those cities also have a lot of alumni from those respective schools. In a perfect world we would all have nice on campus arenas that would give us a real home court edge but the Big East became so big in the 80s that St. John's had to play more games at the Garden, BC even played games at Boston Garden for a while before they opened the Conte Forum, Pitt played games at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena when they were not at Fitzgerald Fieldhouse & UConn was a regular at the Harftord Civic Center both before & after they opened Gampel Pavilion.