June 18, 2002

Milwaukee -- The 2001-02 Marquette men's basketball program finished the year ranked 21st nationally (out of 321 Division I teams) in average home attendance according to figures compiled by the NCAA.

The Golden Eagles, the owners of a 16-0 home record this past year, played before an average crowd of 12,680 fans over the 16 home dates, a 13.2-percent increase from 2000-2001 when MU ranked 31st with an average of 11,194 per home contest. Marquette enjoyed three home sellouts at the Bradley Center during the 2001-02 campaign including a regular-season finale of 18,788 against DePaul (Mar. 1), the largest crowd ever to see a college basketball game in the state of Wisconsin.

Marquette's 1,486 per-game average increase for home games in 2001-02 was the nation's 13th largest increase among Division I programs and was good for a first-place tie with Louisville among Conference USA schools. Texas Tech enjoyed the country's largest average increase, drawing an average of 4,186 more fans per game than in '00-01.

Conference USA schools had four teams ranked among the country's top 25 in attendance -- Louisville (#2, 18,929), Memphis (#10, 16,225), Marquette (#21, 12,680) and Cincinnati (#25, 12,058).

On the national scene, C-USA ranked No. 7 in average home attendance among the 31 Division I conferences with a per-game mark average of 8,497.