Indiana University Athletics
IU Ranks 11th In Nation In 2004-05 Attendance
7/11/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
June 23, 2005
Bloomington, Ind. - For the 33rd time in last 34 years, the Indiana men's basketball team finished the year ranked among the nation's top-11 attendance leaders, as announced the NCAA earlier in the week. For the year, IU was 11th in the nation with an average of 14,702 fans per contest and tallied 235,245 fans who went through the turnstiles throughout the entire season.
The Hoosiers won their last 10 regular-season contests at home, including going a perfect 8-0 at Assembly Hall in league play. It marked the first time since the 1993-94 campaign that IU went undefeated in Big Ten play in Bloomington. Included in those victories was an overtime win over then-No. 9/10 Michigan State (78-74), which marked head coach Mike Davis' seventh win in nine tries against ranked opponents at Assembly Hall.
As a league, the Big Ten topped the nation in total attendance for the 29th consecutive year according to numbers released by the NCAA this week. The Conference also lead the country in tournament attendance for the first time in the eight-year history of the event.
The Conference welcomed 2,255,332 fans through the turnstiles and led the way with an average attendance of 12,530 per game/session, over 1,000 more than the national runner-up (ACC - 11,097). For the 13th straight season, the Big Ten broke the two-million mark in total attendance as the League played host to 2,146,082 patrons in 175 games for an average of 12,623 fans per contest. The NCAA's final attendance numbers and rankings include both regular-season and conference tournament attendance.
In conference tournament action, the League also led nationally for the first time with an average per session attendance of 21,850 at the 2005 Big Ten Tournament held at the United Center in Chicago, Ill. The ACC, which had led the nation in average tournament attendance the last seven seasons, ranked second with 20,301 fans per session. The Big Ten set a pair of attendance records in the final two days of the 2005 Tournament, as the event attracted a single-session record of 23,697 for the semifinal on Saturday before breaking the championship game attendance mark with 22,157 fans on site Sunday. A total of 109,250 fans attended the 2005 Big Ten Tournament, marking the second-highest attendance total in Tournament history behind the 109,769 fans that were present for the 2001 event.
Individually, the Big Ten placed seven universities among the country's top 25 in average attendance, highlighted by three programs among the top 10. No other conference placed more than four teams among the top 25.
