|
|
 |
News With Commentary by TSL Staff Friday, January 16, 2004 Hokies Win Final Big East Football Attendance Crown Editorial Note: This update is taken from Friday's TSLMail. If you haven't seen it, TSLMail is our weekly mailing that gives you special offers on merchandise (like our current blowout sale), updates you on breaking recruiting news, and brings you an extra news item -- or two, or three -- each week that sheds a different like on Hokie sports and leaves you knowing something you didn't know before. To sign up for TSLMail, click here. We do NOT sell our mailing lists or distribute your information to anyone else. In their final season in Big East football, Virginia Tech captured their third attendance title in the last five seasons, with an average of 65,115 fans per game. That bested #2 Pittsburgh by about 6,000 fans per game, as the Panthers had an average of 59,197 fans. Miami, the 2002 champions, averaged 58,135 fans per game in the Orange Bowl.
The history of Big East attendance leaders is an interesting one. The Miami Hurricanes won the title from 1991-1994, with the exception of 1993, when WVU finished first. From 1995-1998, the Mountaineers won the attendance title, with figures that ranged from 50,000 to 55,000. From 1999-2003, the Canes and Hokies have alternated winning the attendance title, with Miami tending to win it in even years, in which the Florida State Seminoles and Hokies came to town.
It's interesting to note that Pitt's average attendance of 59,197 in 2003 would have won the title ten of the thirteen years the Big East has existed, and Miami's third-best attendance 58,135 would have won it nine times. Among those three -- VT, Pitt, and Miami -- they produced some of the best attendance seasons on Big East record. The 2003 Big East attendance total of over 2.4 million is an all-time record for the league. But that's the past. How would the Hokies have placed in the 12-team ACC? The answer is, pretty well. If you add VT, BC, and Miami to the ACC, the Hokies would have finished third in average attendance, behind only FSU and Clemson.
VT is unlikely to outdraw FSU and Clemson, who boast stadium capacities of 83,000 and 81,473, respectively, according to WorldStadiums.com. Worth noting: of the ACC schools listed, only Florida State, Maryland, N.C. State and Virginia Tech finished at 100% capacity or greater.
Wednesday night's 63-50 pasting of Villanova by the VT women's basketball team was a big win in more ways than one:
Villanova came into the game ranked 13th in the RPI ratings, and with the victory, (at the time of this writing) Tech now has two wins over teams in the RPI top 25 (#19 Villanova and #12 ODU) and three more wins over teams in the RPI top 50 (#38 Maryland, #47 Virginia, and #50 Alabama). Those are two of the measures that the NCAA uses to determine NCAA Tournament bids and seedings. Another important measure is losses to teams outside the RPI top 100, of which Tech has none. With their own RPI rating of #13, the Hokies are sitting pretty for an NCAA bid, with 12 games left, provided they win 8 or more of their remaining 12 regular-season games. Contests against RPI heavyweights Miami-Fla (#9), UConn (#11), and Boston College (#17) will help keep the Hokies' RPI rating high, win or lose. But games against RPI dogs St. John's (#146), Syracuse (#166), Pittsburgh (#178) twice, and Providence (#203) will drag down Tech's RPI rating, win or lose, and losing would be particularly painful. The Hokies are hosting a four-team NCAA Tournament sub-regional in Blacksburg next March, regardless of what happens from here on. If VT makes the tourney, they'll be one of the four teams to play in Blacksburg -- they will not be sent anywhere else. Tech's next game is Saturday, Jan. 17th at Georgetown, at 3 p.m. For VT's schedule and
RPI ratings of their opponents, click here.
For VT's schedule info, including times, click here.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
