I can't remember who was the fan who was begging for us to sell out the Syracuse game (#TeamTicketWatchers!!!), but we did it! So, congrats to Illini Nation on the first sellout of the season. Here is a list of average attendance so far for Big Ten teams:
#5 Purdue: 14,876 (100%)
#10 Indiana: 14,852 (86%)
#20 Michigan State: 14,797 (100%)
Wisconsin: 14,329 (83%)
#16 Illinois: 14,027 (90%)
Nebraska: 13,195 (87%)
Michigan: 11,965 (94%)
#22 Maryland: 10,624 (59%)
Iowa: 10,190 (68%)
#25 Ohio State: 8,633 (46%)
Minnesota: 8,218 (56%)
Rutgers: 7,900 (99%)
Penn State: 6,358 (42%)
Northwestern: 2,823 (40%)
And, for fun, by percentage of capacity:
#5 Purdue: 100%
#20 Michigan State: 100%
Rutgers: 99%
Michigan: 94%
#16 Illinois: 90%
Nebraska: 87%
#10 Indiana: 86%
Wisconsin: 83%
Iowa: 68%
#22 Maryland: 59%
Minnesota: 56%
#25 Ohio State: 46%
Penn State: 42%
Northwestern: 40%
Couple random thoughts on this boring Wednesday afternoon:
- LOL Northwestern...
- Nebraska has great fans ... if they could ever strike gold with a decent coach, they would NOT fail due to "apathy toward basketball" like we see at Penn State. Speaking of...
- I know PSU is usually pretty bad, but I think this shows just how many people are traveling to Happy Valley from out of town on football Saturdays. It's still a huge school with an absolutely massive alumni base, so that is pretty pathetic attendance.
- Ohio State has got to be one of the most underwhelming basketball fan bases in the country ... huge school in a very large metro, and their attendance is as close to Northwestern's as it is to Illinois'...
- Iowa basketball fans remind me a lot of Illinois football fans in that they
just don't have the same passion and "habit" of showing up to support the program yet, even when they get kind of good, because they don't have a sustained recent history of consistency to support it (I am counting back to the Lickliter years and before here). Another parallel to Illini football fans is they USED TO be rabid, passionate and numerous back in the day, but a string of disappointments and a relatively lame gameday atmosphere (compared to the opposite sport of football/basketball) doesn't give fans incentive to show up. However, every once in a while they'll pack it for a big game and turn it really loud and intimidating only for that level of enthusiasm to drop back off.