NCAA Releases Official 2014-15 College Basketball Attendance Numbers

Back on July 6, the NCAA released the full and complete attendance numbers for men's college basketball in the 2014-15 season.  Here's how the Big East teams stack up against each other:

Now, there are a few things to take into account here.  First, and I think most notably, is DePaul.  Yes, they're last in the league.  Yes, they played one game at McGrath-Phillips Arena on their campus that only drew 3,501 people.  But, as much as we make fun of the insanely sparse crowds at the Allstate Arena, we have to be fair and point out that the Blue Demons are ranked #83 in the country in attendance.  There's 345 teams in Division 1, 351 if you count the teams that haven't finished the process of transitioning to D1, and DePaul's still in the top quarter in the country in attendance.  Credit where credit is due.

Moving on, let's look at that Marquette number.  13,657 is down from 15,327 a year earlier, but there is an extenuating circumstance.  MU's game in the Al McGuire Center counts as a home contest for the Golden Eagles, and throwing that not sold out crowd of 3,080 into the mix is dragging things down a bit.  Drop that one out of totals, and MU's average attendance boosts up to 14,318.  Yes, that's still down from the year before, but hey, so was the win total.

Even with the drop, Marquette still ended up with one of the 25 best average attendances in the country.  That's always a good thing, and pulling that off with a team that struggled to assemble wins is even better.  One would have to figure that given the influx of talent to the MU roster this season, that average attendance will be soaring back up in 2015-16.

You can check out the PDF with the full list of national attendance numbers here.