Women’s basketball attendance below A-10 average
The average home crowd attendance at VCU women’s basketball games is 516, while the men’s team has sold out the 7,000-plus seat Verizon Wireless Arena a school record of 29 straight times.
Zachary Holden
Staff Writer
While the VCU men’s basketball team approaches its 30th straight sellout at the Siegel Center, recent support for the women’s team has been meager at best.
The average home crowd attendance at VCU women’s basketball games is 516, while the men’s team has sold out the 7,000-plus seat Verizon Wireless Arena a school record of 29 straight times. The largest home crowd the Lady Rams have played in front of came in their loss to George Washington last Sunday afternoon when 861 fans came out.
At other top women’s schools in the country – Baylor, Notre Dame, Connecticut, and Tennessee- the average attendance is 8,000 fans. Two of these women’s teams, Notre Dame and Baylor, average higher crowds than their men.
When put up against other Atlantic 10 women’s teams, the VCU women are around the middle of the pack. VCU’s 516 fans per home game is higher than six of the other 15 teams in the conference, but well off the mark of the A-10’s best draws.
Dayton and Charlotte lead the A-10 in women’s attendance with 1,822 and 1,782 respectively, while three other teams (St. Joseph’s, Duquesne and Xavier) each average more than 1000 fans.
The University of Richmond and Saint Louis women’s basketball teams are at the bottom of the pack in the A-10, with average attendances 291 and 274, respectively.
Game after game, VCU men’s basketball coach Shaka Smart talks about how great the crowd is and praises fans. In the home win over a resilient Saint Joseph’s, Smart gave the crowd kudos for not only coming out on a dangerous, snowy night, but also for the support they showed in a late, overtime thriller.
“I thought the crowd was awesome,” Smart said of the game. “We don’t win this game if it wasn’t for a phenomenal crowd.”
The crowd energy that often aids the men’s basketball team is almost nonexistent when the Lady Rams play. Sunday’s turnout in a 79-68 loss to George Washington was an improvement, and freshman Kaneisha Atwater says it’s one of the main reasons the game didn’t get out of hand.
“It was very important, it was outstanding,” said Atwater of the team’s fans. “We couldn’t execute what we were trying to do, but thanks to the crowd, the support was really good.”
Two of the largest crowds they’ve seen this season have both come on the road; a crowd of 3,275 at then- No. 24 Ohio State, and 2,512 at Old Dominion. Both of these games happened to be 20-plus point losses for the Lady Rams, possibly due to the fact they had large crowds to cheer their teams on.
Standout junior Robin Parks averages nearly 18 points and eight rebounds a game. Her message to the students and fans of VCU basketball is simple: “Just come show support like (you) support the guys, girls need the same type of support that the guys get.”
Entering VCU’s home game against conference foe Duquesne Wednesday night, the Lady Rams were 8-10 overall and 1-2 in A-10 play. They travel to Butler this weekend for a match-up with the Bulldogs before returning home to face the conference’s leader in home attendance, Dayton on Jan. 30.