WSJ: Most Valuable College Basketball Teams

[Bill Marsh]

The article was saying how many fans were actually there. You can't use Siena's attendance because that is the attendance that Siena reported, not how many fans were actually there... DePauls reported attendance was 6238 this year.

Bottom line, if DePaul goes 20-10 instead of 10-20, they're going to see their attendance go up. Folks like winners.

I've been to Siena games. The people who buy tickets there show up.

Even if their reported attendance was off by a third, they're still a mid major with an identical record who doubled DePaul's attendance. Having been to a number of games there, I highly doubt that their reported numbers are off even by that much. Siena is simply not buying up the large blocks of tickets that DePaul is and then reporting them as tickets sold.

I agree that attendance will increase if they win games. But they're starting from an abysmally low point which is comparable to MAAC or WCC teams. 1,900 suggests complete lack of interest in the program. Their strong start to the Big East season should have created some interest that would have bumped attendance. It didn't That suggests that it's going to take more than just winning some games. It's going to take sustained winning.

[DemonLS]

Marquette,

If you think DePaul ONLY had George Mikan and Mark Aguirre in their program, then you have not watched their program at all. I guess you are showing your young age too.

DePaul has just as many or more NBA players than MU has had. DId you forget guys like Terry Cummings (where your own home stadium has a huge NBA picture of him), Rod Strickland, Kevin Edwards, Dave Corzine, Gary Garland, Wilson Chandler, Quentin Richardson, Bobby Simmons, Tyrone Corbin, Dallas Comegys, Bill Robinzine, Steven Hunter, Drake Diener (who is basically the #1 player in Europe), etc. I won't mention the older players.

You don't have to mention MU's NBA players because I could name most off the top of my head because I watched them all in-person.

DePaul does not have bandwagon fans. The program has just been losing for so long. Your friends probably were not college bball fans anyways.

I watched several games this season where MU said they had 15K in attendance AND the upper deck was very empty. False attendance numbers! And look what happens when MU had somewhat of a down season. Imagine 20 years of that. Well, that is where DePaul's program sits.

IF DWade was not on that Final Four team, I am pretty sure Travis Diener, who did NOT have any kind of NBA career, would have brought MU out of the first round. And I liked Travis Diener's game.

And for the other gentleman who stated that Dave Leitao is not Mr. Excitement. You may want to wait to watch him. He is a very strong, vocal coach. Much more animated than you think. Is he the right coach? We will have to wait and see.

Again, I could go on......but stick your own program.

[billyjack]

I was pretty critical of Purnell and DePaul, and then my first reaction to hiring Leitao was disbelief and pessimism. But thinking it through over the past week, I've really warmed up to the hire.

I think next year DePaul can maybe grab an NIT bid. Actually, I'm thinking Leitao could have grabbed an NIT this past year, had he been the coach. This is a team that had the ability to beat Stanford by 15 under Oliver. They wouldn't have lost to Illinois State and wouldn't have sucked in Hawaii.

Also, i see DePaul as a program that will grow with snowball type momentum. With good OOC results next year, i can picture attendance really getting back to normal fast. It's a fanbase that is hungry and tired of being dumped on, and will support a solid, hard working team.

[MUBoxer]

Marquette,

If you think DePaul ONLY had George Mikan and Mark Aguirre in their program, then you have not watched their program at all. I guess you are showing your young age too.

DePaul has just as many or more NBA players than MU has had. DId you forget guys like Terry Cummings (where your own home stadium has a huge NBA picture of him), Rod Strickland, Kevin Edwards, Dave Corzine, Gary Garland, Wilson Chandler, Quentin Richardson, Bobby Simmons, Tyrone Corbin, Dallas Comegys, Bill Robinzine, Steven Hunter, Drake Diener (who is basically the #1 player in Europe), etc. I won't mention the older players.

You don't have to mention MU's NBA players because I could name most off the top of my head because I watched them all in-person.

DePaul does not have bandwagon fans. The program has just been losing for so long. Your friends probably were not college bball fans anyways.

I watched several games this season where MU said they had 15K in attendance AND the upper deck was very empty. False attendance numbers! And look what happens when MU had somewhat of a down season. Imagine 20 years of that. Well, that is where DePaul's program sits.

IF DWade was not on that Final Four team, I am pretty sure Travis Diener, who did NOT have any kind of NBA career, would have brought MU out of the first round. And I liked Travis Diener's game.

And for the other gentleman who stated that Dave Leitao is not Mr. Excitement. You may want to wait to watch him. He is a very strong, vocal coach. Much more animated than you think. Is he the right coach? We will have to wait and see.

Again, I could go on......but stick your own program.

I believe you were responding to me and my name is MUBoxer not Marquette

Really so you feel that Depaul would still have those Final Fours without Mikan or Aguirre? When you only have 3 elite 8s and 2 of those went on to final fours and all 3 of those years correspond to those two players there's likely a connection. Marquette you take away Wade and the McGuire years we still have some decent runs.

Age has nothing to do with it, I'm in my mid 20s. This isn't the 90s or 80s where "you had to be there". Now people can looks up every game statistic, every player's averages, most game clips and I've done that.

No you have less NBA players. 37>32 also a total of 12 of depauls came in the 50s vs MU's 2 so if you try to play the "we've been down for so long" card it evens out since you got started before us. Please don't say "your NBA stadium" I'm a Bulls fan live and breathe Chicago Bball, Whitney Young and OPRF High Schools not some place way out in Barrington or Naperville (not sure where you're from but I enjoy making a mental picture), I was taking the El to see the Bulls since I was 3 (not alone of course).

I'd very much like to see the actual attendance numbers for MU.

Regarding my friends, we went to a basketball crazy OPRF when Shumpert was there of course we're basketball fans so that argument is just null.

What does Diener's NBA career have to do with this? Jerel McNeal and Lazar Hayward have barely seen the court in the NBA and they're two of Marquette's best all time players... it happens. Not saying Diener would've had MU in the FF but saying Wade did it alone is completely baseless. You put Wade on a random MAC team and he gets to the FF without two other future pros you can say he did it alone.

Again I very much hope for Depaul to be great and wouldn't be this confrontational had you not implied that MU's program boils down to McGuire and one year with Wade when Depaul has a much stronger case that it's program is based on 2 players.

[marquette]

Marquette,

Cut the DePaul bashing! DePaul's fan base is very large. The program has been down for 20 years so fans do not attend games. They are waiting for the winner to return....and a long time at that. Also, DePaul's history is VERY strong.

If DePaul ever gets its act together ONCE AGAIN, then you will see what type of program DePaul can be and what the Chicago media can do to exponentially promote it.

I am guessing you are one of those young MU fans. The day after Al McGuire left that program, DePaul owned MU from 1978 - 1992. Outside of DWade (who actually wanted to go to DePaul but they did not recruit for some stupid reason) carrying your MU program single-handedly to the Final Four, MU has underachieved based on some of their talent levels. I have watched MU's teams since the late 60s so I know what I am talking about.

Most Chicagoans think MU fans and alumni are snobs and you fit right in. Just focus on your program.

Whoa, slow your roll there. I wasn't trying to bash DePaul. I was trying to point out a flaw in the methodology (or at least the results). It is an easy apples to apples comparison since most of the controllable revenue streams are identical. DePaul and Creighton play in the same conference, have the same tv deal, get the same NCAA unit payout, play the same teams, etc. The size of the fan base is not important to revenue or value unless they are putting their money where their mouth is. Creighton's fans are doing that by showing up in excess of 17,000 per game. As far as I can tell, that's really the only controllable difference in revenue. Chicago is also a more expensive city than Omaha, so that creates higher expenses. You can see why having DePaul ranked ahead of Creighton might confuse me. DePaul's decade plus of poor performance also means their program doesn't get the attention that Creighton, which recently had the NPOY and 3 NCAA tourney appearances in a row, does.

I never said DePaul's long term history wasn't strong. I'm sure that if DePaul did start winning they would get more attention and better attendance, no argument there. I'm not sure what my age has to do with anything. 1978-1992 was a long time ago. You can't just not count the D Wade period, but even without that we have a strong history including 8 straight NCAA appearances from 2006-13. I'm not really sure how you can call that underachieving. Congrats on watching MU for so long, but it appears that one of us is worrying a lot about the other's program while admonishing the other to not worry about theirs. I've been called a lot of things in my brief time on this earth, but snob is a new one. I don't generally judge people based on where they went to school (even if it was Notre Dame).

[marquette]

Marquette,

If you think DePaul ONLY had George Mikan and Mark Aguirre in their program, then you have not watched their program at all. I guess you are showing your young age too.

DePaul has just as many or more NBA players than MU has had. DId you forget guys like Terry Cummings (where your own home stadium has a huge NBA picture of him), Rod Strickland, Kevin Edwards, Dave Corzine, Gary Garland, Wilson Chandler, Quentin Richardson, Bobby Simmons, Tyrone Corbin, Dallas Comegys, Bill Robinzine, Steven Hunter, Drake Diener (who is basically the #1 player in Europe), etc. I won't mention the older players.

You don't have to mention MU's NBA players because I could name most off the top of my head because I watched them all in-person.

DePaul does not have bandwagon fans. The program has just been losing for so long. Your friends probably were not college bball fans anyways.

I watched several games this season where MU said they had 15K in attendance AND the upper deck was very empty. False attendance numbers! And look what happens when MU had somewhat of a down season. Imagine 20 years of that. Well, that is where DePaul's program sits.

IF DWade was not on that Final Four team, I am pretty sure Travis Diener, who did NOT have any kind of NBA career, would have brought MU out of the first round. And I liked Travis Diener's game.

And for the other gentleman who stated that Dave Leitao is not Mr. Excitement. You may want to wait to watch him. He is a very strong, vocal coach. Much more animated than you think. Is he the right coach? We will have to wait and see.

Again, I could go on......but stick your own program.

Please read the name of the person you are responding to before responding. I don't disagree with Boxer, but the post you seem to be responding to is not mine.

[marquette]

The article was saying how many fans were actually there. You can't use Siena's attendance because that is the attendance that Siena reported, not how many fans were actually there... DePauls reported attendance was 6238 this year.

Bottom line, if DePaul goes 20-10 instead of 10-20, they're going to see their attendance go up. Folks like winners.

I'm not knowledgable of the Chicago sports market. So I am curious if winning would make a significant impact or is Chicago such a Pro Baseball, Football, NBA town that even if DePaul got good it couldn't break through. It Butlers case Indy is a college basketball town so when they are good they draw coverage.

For reference, in CUSA when DePaul was good they drew over 9,000 a game. Chicago is largely a pro sports market, but if they play well they will get attention.

[Steve Lavin]

I'm shocked SJU is #42…if I had to guess I'd guess like #150.

[Bill Marsh]

I'm shocked SJU is #42…if I had to guess I'd guess like #150.

I'm shocked that you're shocked. Maybe you're just shell shocked since you were fired.

[FormulaX]

I'm shocked SJU is #42…if I had to guess I'd guess like #150.

I'm shocked that you're shocked. Maybe you're just shell shocked since you were fired.

You have a great opportunity to re-invent yourself, here. You could shorten your "steve lavin" to stever21