15. Maryland Terrapins
Location: Xfinity Center (17,950) in College Park, MD
College Park is well-known as one of the best campus atmospheres for sporting events in the country. However, basketball matters more than any other. The Xfinity Center, the on-campus basketball arena, seats a ton of fans for each game thanks to his high max occupancy. And let’s just say that those seats are not filled with quiet individuals who just want to enjoy a basketball game.
With a student section that has more seats than some mid-majors have students (4,000), the Xfinity Center is rocking on gameday thanks to these raucous fans. This student section runs around the entire perimeter of the court and goes 10 rows deep. As an opponent in this building, good luck going anywhere without hearing an antagonistic cheer.
Maryland’s 148-30 (.831) record at home over the last 10 years is far better than the average team nationwide and the crowd atmosphere in the building has a lot to do with that. Jordan Katz, a Maryland student and writer for The Diamondback, had this to say about the experience inside a home game:
"“I think my favorite thing about games at Xfinity Center is how we put students in all four corners of the arena. I feel like I see lots of arenas only put their students behind the baskets but that’s absolutely not the case at Xfinity, which I love. I’ll also always appreciate our vulgarity, as much as that might turn some people off. We begin every game with a tune called “Hey, You Suck” based on Rock and Roll Part 2 by Gary Glitter and we’ve also serenaded Isaac Haas and Jarrod Uthoff with “you are ugly” chants. Maryland had just two road wins in Big Ten play last year [2017-18] compared to six wins in College Park, which is a pretty good indication of how much of a home-court advantage Xfinity Center provides them.”"