CSNbbs

WalletHub ranked the "Best Cities for College Basketball"
https://wallethub.com/edu/best-cities-fo...all/32944/

I have issues with their methodology, I'd like to hear others' thoughts on this as well. Are the results what you'd expect?

I will say it is interesting to see where the city your team is from ends up. How'd y'all fare?

x-post from http://www.umasshoops.com/newboard/viewt...1&p=471763

inthescoop Wrote:Since it’s the offseason, I’ll start a new thread for it, to boost up the discussions here.

https://wallethub.com/edu/best-cities-f ... all/32944/

Amherst is ranked 86th nationally, and 46th among small cities.

I think I have to question this list's "basketball cities". Cullowhee, NC (home of Western Carolina) is #15 overall? West Point is #22? I can tell you right now basketball does not steer the ship at Army. From what I know there is little interest among most cadets and old grads.

Just as a general rule of thumb: when doing analysis on city performance like this it's best to use statistics on the metropolitan area or at least the county level. Using the "city" level can skew things because instead of looking at where people live, work, shop, and their general behavior you're looking how local governments designate areas.

Some criticism of their methodology:

Quote:Number of College Basketball (Division 1) Teams: Full Weight (~14.29 Points)

The impact of multiple teams in one region should already be accounted for by the other metrics. Further, does this matter? Is a city really better if it has five awful to mediocre teams versus one dominant national player?

Quote:Performance Level of College Basketball (Division 1) Team(s): Full Weight (~14.29 Points)
Note: This metric was calculated by dividing “Number of Wins” by “Total Games Played” and using the past three seasons’ averages.

Why is this indicative of performance? Yes wins matter, but a win in the Atlantic Sun Conference is different from a win in the Atlantic Ten Conference is different from a win in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Quote:Number of Basketball (Division 1) Championship Wins: Full Weight (~14.29 Points)

National Championship? Conference Championship (see previous note)? What are we talking here? And there should be some weighting by time. UCLA was dominant in the '70s but should those wins have the same impact on Los Angeles as UConn's wins from the 2000s have on Hartford? This goes back to my comment on metro areas. Why does UCLA impact Los Angeles instead of Westwood while UConn impacts Storrs instead of Hartford? There's always going to be major differences in region land area and population, but using MSAs helps to normalize this so that we're examining the bigger picture instead of a brush stroke.

Quote:Number of College Basketball (Division 1) Regular Season Championship Wins: Half Weight (~7.14 Points)

See previous two notes.

Quote:Number of National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame Head Coaches: Full Weight (~14.29 Points)

Is the coach still at the school? I'd say Calipari has a greater influence as a HOF coach at Kentucky in 2018 than he does on the performance at Massachusetts.

Quote:Minimum College Basketball (Division 1) Season Ticket Price: Half Weight (~7.14 Points)

I understand this is trying to measure demand. However I doubt it accounts for the cost index between different metro areas. Even if it did, wouldn't total revenue from basketball be a better metric? Why not account for TV revenue, sponsorships, merchandise, single-game tickets, etc. too?

Quote:College-Basketball Fans Engagement: Sesqui-Weight (~21.43 Points)
Note: This metric was calculated by adding “Number of Twitter Followers” and “Number of Facebook ‘Likes’ per Capita.”

Unfortunately this doesn't account for older fanbases who might be just as engaged as younger fanbases, but I'd assume less likely to use Twitter and Facebook. Again, the per capita is weird, it's the metro area versus city argument. The other factor this doesn't account for is bandwagon likes. How many folks "liked" UNC on Facebook after the 2017 National Championship game, but have no intention of purchasing tickets or donating to the program?

Quote:Number of Coaches in Past 10 Seasons: Quarter Weight (~3.57 Points)
Note: “Past 10 Seasons” include seasons 2007–2008 to 2016–2017.

Why is this indicative of a good program? There's programs like VCU who have had four coaches in the past decade, but have been to the NCAAT eight of those years. There's programs like Lafayette who have had the same coach for 23 years and only made NCAAT three times in that tenure (including a 14 year drought) and only once in the past decade.

Quote:College-Basketball Stadium Capacity: Quarter Weight (~3.57 Points)
Note: This metric was calculated by dividing “Stadium Capacity” by “City Population.”

Again see my note on metro areas. Also, isn't attendance more important than capacity? What about a program like Robert Morris who plays in PPG Paints Arena (19,100) but as an NEC team they struggle to regularly draw 1,000 people (averaging 766 per game in 2017-18).

Since when is West Point NY a city? Technically its not even a town or village

Stupid poll...BS rankings.

Outside of the Top 25 or so, I highly doubt they put that much research and time into it. There's too many variables and too many teams. It's like those rankings that come out prior to each football season that try to rank all D1 FBS teams 1 thru 130 or whatever we're at now.

(03-19-2018 12:10 AM)Bronco14 Wrote: [ -> ]Outside of the Top 25 or so, I highly doubt they put that much research and time into it. There's too many variables and too many teams. It's like those rankings that come out prior to each football season that try to rank all D1 FBS teams 1 thru 130 or whatever we're at now.

I don't think there was much research put into it at all. The Top 25 (like the rest of the list) is a mess in my opinion. There's just no way that Western Carolina, BU/BC/Northeastern, URI, Mississippi Valley State, Army, Saint Francis, or Houston/Houston Baptist/Rice/Texas Southern should be anywhere near the Top 30.

^This^

calling west point a city destroys any credibility this report had

^ No question. Yes, West Point is a Census Designated Place, but Highlands, NY is the city. Or to my metro point, Army should have been part of the NYC metro area (they were part of the Poughkeepsie metro, but that was merged into NYC in 2013).

I'd put Greater Cincinnati right up near the top with anyone outside of the Triangle in North Carolina. This is a college basketball town, with UC and XU, not to mention that you have fans of other schools in the nearby vicinity: UK, Louisville, Dayton, Ohio State, Indiana... we even have some good secondary schools within the area in Northern Kentucky (just across the river from downtown Cincinnati) and Wright State (50 miles up the road).

The best big metro has to be Louisville. I listen to their local ESPN radio every day online while at work and it is so much UofL talk mixed with NBA and horse racing. No where else have I heard so much college basketball talk and cant miss Bob Valvano's show.

I have been sick of Buffalo WGR radio's nonstop NFL draft talk for 3 months. Even when UB had it's Tourny run, WGR would do some segments and interviews, but they had so many commitments to random website NFL draft 'experts' lined up, they couldnt even talk UB or Sabres.

With the 2018 basketball tournaments Buffalo's other media were bashing WGR for not covering anything else. UB's women's basketball rated as high as Sabres games, something few would imagine. Here are local TV ratings comparisons (#53 tv market, 1 point is 5,927 households)

14.7 - UB vs Kentucky CBS (Peaked at 17.2 by game end)
11.5 - UB vs Arizona CBS (Peaked at 14.2 at 11:15PM)
7.9 - Syracuse vs Duke CBS
7.8 - Syracuse vs Michigan St CBS
7.5 - Michigan vs Loyola TBS
7.4 - Villanova vs Michigan Nat'l Champ TBS
6.7 - UB women vs South Carolina ESPN
6.2 - Vilanova vs Kansas TBS
5.1 - St Bonaventure vs UCLA TruTV
4.5 - St Bonaventure vs Florida TruTV
4.0 - UB women vs Florida ESPN2
2.6 - Notre Dame vs Mississippi St Nat'l Champ ESPN
2.3 - UB women vs South Florida ESPN2

In the midwest nothing beats Cincy imo.

Xavier (Big East)
Cincinnati (American)
Northern Kentucky (Horizon)
Dayton (A10)
Wright State (Horizon)
Miami (MAC)
————1 Hour————
Kentucky (SEC)
Louisville (ACC)
Ohio State (B1G)
Butler (Big East)
IUPUI (Horizon)
Morehead State (OVC)
————2 Hours————

5 P6 teams within 2 hours.
7 P6+AAC+A10 teams within 2 hours.
10 quality programs within 2 hours.
12 programs within 2 hours.
9 conferences within 2 hours.


Cincinnati/Tri-State area is college hoops heaven.

(03-19-2018 12:05 PM)McKinney Wrote: [ -> ]

(03-19-2018 12:10 AM)Bronco14 Wrote: [ -> ]Outside of the Top 25 or so, I highly doubt they put that much research and time into it. There's too many variables and too many teams. It's like those rankings that come out prior to each football season that try to rank all D1 FBS teams 1 thru 130 or whatever we're at now.

I don't think there was much research put into it at all. The Top 25 (like the rest of the list) is a mess in my opinion. There's just no way that Western Carolina, BU/BC/Northeastern, URI, Mississippi Valley State, Army, Saint Francis, or Houston/Houston Baptist/Rice/Texas Southern should be anywhere near the Top 30.

If Houston was anywhere near the top 50, you know it's a BS list. Houston isn't even in the top 200 of college basketball places.

Knoxville, TN: hell of a place to watch a ball game.

New York. End of discussion.

(03-20-2018 09:12 AM)CliftonAve Wrote: [ -> ]I'd put Greater Cincinnati right up near the top with anyone outside of the Triangle in North Carolina. This is a college basketball town, with UC and XU, not to mention that you have fans of other schools in the nearby vicinity: UK, Louisville, Dayton, Ohio State, Indiana... we even have some good secondary schools within the area in Northern Kentucky (just across the river from downtown Cincinnati) and Wright State (50 miles up the road).

Hey, Miami made the CBI last year!

Let me rep Omaha/Lincoln on this thread. Creighton Univ and Nebraska Univ campuses are 58 miles apart. Creighton averages 17,400 per game (#5 in country behind the Tar Heels). Nebraska averages 15,400 (#11). Together that is 32,800 in a small population state. Univ of Nebraska in a way is more impressive: that's basically a sold out house each night for a ... meh... team.

Nebraska is 11th in attendance for a program that’s never won an NCAA Tournament game and has made 1 appearance in 20 years. Best fan base in college hoops.

1) Omaha/Lincoln
2) Indianapolis/Bloomington/West Lafayette
3) Dayton/Cincinnati
4) Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill
5) Louisville/Lexington
6) Syracuse
7) Memphis
8) Wichita/Kansas City/Lawrence
9) Salt Lake City/Provo/Ogden
10) Central Illinois (Urbana/Normal/Peoria)

(05-21-2018 11:20 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote: [ -> ]Nebraska is 11th in attendance for a program that’s never won an NCAA Tournament game and has made 1 appearance in 20 years. Best fan base in college hoops.

I think the best fit is most loyal, not necessarily best. Besides, what else is there to do in Lincoln except to husk corn?

(05-22-2018 12:09 AM)_C2_ Wrote: [ -> ]

(05-21-2018 11:20 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote: [ -> ]Nebraska is 11th in attendance for a program that’s never won an NCAA Tournament game and has made 1 appearance in 20 years. Best fan base in college hoops.

I think the best fit is most loyal, not necessarily best. Besides, what else is there to do in Lincoln except to husk corn?

O Street

I don't think Lincoln is the best place for college hoops, but it's certainly better than Dekalb. All anyone cares about in that area is the Bulls. Northern Illinois is a wasteland as far as college sports go.