Big East Basketball: Ranking best homecourt advantages for 2020-21 season
By Max Marmitt
It’s no secret that home-court advantage provides a huge edge in college basketball, especially in the Big East. With teams playing in frenzied Pavilions, sold-out NBA stadiums, and high-quality basketball arenas, which Big East teams have the best home-court advantage?
In 2013, a new era began for Big East Basketball. Rebranding the conference following the conclusion of the “Old Big East” seemed almost unattainable. However, not only did the Big East recover from the losses of teams like Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, West Virginia, Notre Dame, and others, it has consistently thrived as undoubtedly one of the best college basketball conferences every year.
Statistically speaking, Kenpom has rated the Big East as at least a top 5 conference every year since realignment. In 2014, the Big East was rated the 5th best conference, 2nd best in 2015, and 3rd best in 2016-2018 and 2020. Even in their expected down year in 2019, they were still rated as a top-5 conference.
During non-conference play, the Big East typically sees at least half of the conference in the AP Top 25 rankings or receiving votes, with a couple of years recently with 70 to 90 percent of the conference receiving votes (and at least half of the conference has been ranked during conference play too, especially last year). With the exception of 2019, five to seven Big East teams have ended the year as top 50 RPI/NET teams, battle testing the several Big East NCAA tournament teams for March (7/10 teams have made March Madness in a single year).
The star power of the conference has been incredible with sensational talents like Doug McDermott, Josh Hart, Jalen Brunson, Markus Howard, Myles Powell, Shamorie Ponds, Kris Dunn, J.P Macura, Max Strus, D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera, and countless of others. Several AP All Americans (5 AP-first team) have represented the conference, including Markus Howard and Myles Powell who were legitimate Wooden Award candidates last year. Just like any other major conference recently, an entire article could be written about each team’s stars in the “New Big East.”
With UConn (more to come) rejoining the Big East this year, an already bright future for the conference just elevated its potential to another level. In any major or mid-major college basketball conference, road wins are definitely not easy to come by. These schools are all primarily basketball-first sport schools, an underrated component to the difficulty of conference road wins. With the atmosphere that each school provides for every home game, the Big East is no exception to how difficult away victories are in college basketball, a sport where having home territory truly provides an advantage that is much bigger than most sports leagues.
With that being said, here are my rankings on which Big East teams have the best home-court advantage…