fellahmuskie wrote:I appreciate the enthusiasm of my fellow X fan, but no way we are at the top. And Butler is waaay too high.
1. Marquette
2. Creighton
3. Villanova
4. Xavier
5. Providence
6. Butler
7. St. John's
8. Seton Hall
9. Georgetown
10. DePaul
Creighton, Marquette and Nova get props for regularly filling up big arenas.
Xavier at its best is special, but we still have work to do in building our fanbase.
Georgetown, UConn and St. John's will vault up this list of they get back to national prominence.
If it's primarily about home attendance, which I think would be the key metric for doing this, then I don't see how Creighton doesn't come out on top. As I understand it, the CHI is full for every game. That's 17,000+ fans in the seats for every home game.
What really blew me away last year was Xavier's away game against Marquette. Brand new NBA arena that was packed to the gills. It was a damn show. Marquette would get the nod as top dog were it capable of doing that for every one of its games, but I don't think they sell out for every game, based on a few of the other games of theirs I caught this year.
Sorry, but if Creighton is #1, Xavier is #2. The Cintas Center is now configured for 10,500, but X allows the turnstiles to float a little above that for certain games. The Nova when ranked #1 versus Xavier when ranked #5 game in 2017 - Xavier's first victory against Nova in the BE with Raff and Gus Johnson on the microphones - had 10,800 people in attendance and the place was rabid. Overall, I believe X is running at 98+% capacity, which is a helluva number.
Providence, Seton Hall and Georgetown seem to have the greatest elasticity and potential here. The Dunk is fun to watch on TV when it's cranked up. Seton Hall has had some impressive games in Newark. Watch out if Georgetown finds its stride fully. Same for the Johnnies, especially at MSG.
1. Creighton
2. Xavier
3. Marquette
4. Villanova
5. Providence
6. Butler
7. St. John's
8. Seton Hall
9. Georgetown
10. DePaul