Answer quickly.
Which college football team has a great home court advantage at their stadium? Which college basketball team has a great home court advantage at their arena? I'm guessing that for football you may have picked teams like LSU at Tiger Stadium, Virginia Tech at Lane Stadium, Florida at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, or USC at the L.
A.
Memorial Coliseum.
For basketball, maybe you picked Duke at Cameron Indoor Coliseum, Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse, Kentucky at Rupp Arena, or North Carolina at the Dean Dome.
If you answered one of these, you are certainly not alone.
Every year, numerous lists are generated and published that identify the teams that have great home court advantage.
These lists have headings such as "the tough ones to play in" or "ten toughest places to play" and they describe the teams as having outstanding home court advantage.
The teams I mentioned above consistently appear near the top of those lists.
Even if these aren't the ones you thought of, they're pretty good picks, right? Actually, no, they aren't.
Does Rupp Arena give the Kentucky Wildcats more of an advantage than other college basketball teams playing at home? Are the LSU Tigers more successful in football at home than away in comparison to other teams? The answer is "no.
" In reality, Kentucky basketball, LSU football, and the other teams mentioned above all have something in common, but it isn't home court advantage.
What they have in common is that they win a lot at home and away.
That is, they are very good teams.
But, home court advantage isn't how much you win at home.
That can very well be just an indicator of how good a team you are.
True home court advantage is how much you win at home in comparison to how much you win away.
The larger the difference is, the larger the advantage that can be attributed to playing at home.
To compare the hype and the facts, I used data from ten seasons, 1998-2007, in which I analyzed every home and away game played in MLB, the NBA, and the NFL, and in the college versions of these sports in five major conferences (SEC, ACC, Pac-10, Big Ten, and Big 12).
When I used actual data to compute home court advantage for the 57 college teams in the five conferences I analyzed, not a single one of the eight teams I mentioned above was even in the top 25 out of 57 teams.
The hype and the facts are, forgive the pun, not even in the same ballpark.
Which college football team has a great home court advantage at their stadium? Which college basketball team has a great home court advantage at their arena? I'm guessing that for football you may have picked teams like LSU at Tiger Stadium, Virginia Tech at Lane Stadium, Florida at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, or USC at the L.
A.
Memorial Coliseum.
For basketball, maybe you picked Duke at Cameron Indoor Coliseum, Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse, Kentucky at Rupp Arena, or North Carolina at the Dean Dome.
If you answered one of these, you are certainly not alone.
Every year, numerous lists are generated and published that identify the teams that have great home court advantage.
These lists have headings such as "the tough ones to play in" or "ten toughest places to play" and they describe the teams as having outstanding home court advantage.
The teams I mentioned above consistently appear near the top of those lists.
Even if these aren't the ones you thought of, they're pretty good picks, right? Actually, no, they aren't.
Does Rupp Arena give the Kentucky Wildcats more of an advantage than other college basketball teams playing at home? Are the LSU Tigers more successful in football at home than away in comparison to other teams? The answer is "no.
" In reality, Kentucky basketball, LSU football, and the other teams mentioned above all have something in common, but it isn't home court advantage.
What they have in common is that they win a lot at home and away.
That is, they are very good teams.
But, home court advantage isn't how much you win at home.
That can very well be just an indicator of how good a team you are.
True home court advantage is how much you win at home in comparison to how much you win away.
The larger the difference is, the larger the advantage that can be attributed to playing at home.
To compare the hype and the facts, I used data from ten seasons, 1998-2007, in which I analyzed every home and away game played in MLB, the NBA, and the NFL, and in the college versions of these sports in five major conferences (SEC, ACC, Pac-10, Big Ten, and Big 12).
When I used actual data to compute home court advantage for the 57 college teams in the five conferences I analyzed, not a single one of the eight teams I mentioned above was even in the top 25 out of 57 teams.
The hype and the facts are, forgive the pun, not even in the same ballpark.
Source...