There’s nothing like an unsubstantiated assertion to motivate me to post.

The principal difference between the ACC and the Big East is the level of home-court advantage. Sure, there are a few dominant courts in the Big East, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a weak one anywhere in the ACC. Even traditional bottom-feeders, such as Clemson and Florida State, can pack ’em in and chase away road teams. – Andy Katz, ACC Summer Session

I’ve had this theory that I don’t think I have expressed here yet: home court advantage isn’t much different between, say playing at Duke, as compared to playing at Savannah State. Most of the home court advantage is the result of simply being able to maintain one’s normal routine, play in familiar confines, etc. Sure, it’s harder to win at Cameron Indoor, but that has much more to do with the team you have to play there than any intimidation by the fans. So even though Katz’s comment falls into the common-sense category, it was with skepticism that I read it.

And any skepticism I have can be easily addressed by tallying up how each conference’s home teams did in conference play. Here’s the list for the 2005 season…

 1 Big Sky          42-14 .750
 2 MAC              83-34 .709
 3 Ivy              38-18 .679
 4 Missouri Valley  61-29 .678
 5 SEC              65-31 .677
 6 Ohio Valley      59-29 .670
 7 Patriot          37-19 .661
 8 Big Ten          58-30 .659
 9 WAC              59-31 .656
 9 Big West         59-31 .656
 9 MAAC             59-31 .656
12 SoCon            62-34 .646
13 America East     58-32 .644
14 Big XII          61-35 .635
15 Mountain West    35-21 .625
15 ACC              55-33 .625
15 Big South        45-27 .625
15 Sun Belt         50-30 .625
15 West Coast       35-21 .625
20 Pac 10           56-34 .622
21 Conference USA   69-43 .616
22 NEC              60-39 .606
23 CAA              54-36 .600
24 Horizon          43-29 .597
25 SWAC             53-37 .589
26 Big East         56-40 .583
26 Atlantic 10      56-40 .583
26 MidCon           42-30 .583
29 Southland        50-38 .568
30 Atlantic Sun     62-48 .564
31 MEAC             54-45 .545

So yeah, the ACC (15th) was tougher on road teams than the Big East (26th), but what is striking is how random this list seems to be. If a coach takes a job in the Big Sky, he’s not going to be complaining about how difficult it will be to play in Pocatello, Missoula, and Cheney. Which means if you buy into this data, then it’s hard to support the traditional view of home-court advantage. And if you don’t believe the data, then you probably shouldn’t be reading this blog. If the "rabid crowd theory" has any validity then there must be a lot of noise contained in the 2005 numbers.

To weed out the noise, let’s look at the aggregate conference home records for the last five years combined.

 1 Mountain West    192- 88 .686
 2 SEC              320-160 .667
 2 Big XII          320-160 .667
 4 Big Ten          293-147 .666
 5 Missouri Valley  296-154 .658
 6 MAC              384-201 .656
 7 ACC              245-131 .652
 8 CAA              271-145 .651
 9 WAC              281-151 .650
10 Big South        220-120 .647
11 Big Sky          191-105 .645
12 Ohio Valley      251-141 .640
13 Horizon          219-125 .637
14 Patriot          169- 99 .631
15 Conference USA   343-201 .631
16 SWAC             280-170 .622
17 Southland        311-195 .615
18 SoCon            295-185 .615
19 Big West         265-167 .613
20 Big East         333-211 .612
21 NEC              332-214 .608
22 Atlantic 10      285-185 .606
23 Pac 10           271-179 .602
24 Sun Belt         250-166 .601
25 America East     248-166 .599
26 Atlantic Sun     308-208 .597
27 MidCon           195-133 .595
28 MAAC             267-183 .593
29 Ivy              163-117 .582
30 MEAC             288-207 .582
31 West Coast       155-125 .554

This list should make a little more sense to the folks that think the intensity of the crowd is what matters. Four of the six power conferences hold spots in the top seven for home court advantage. But there are still some oddities like the Big East and Pac 10 being ranked so low, and the respectable WCC being the worst conference for home teams.

So what does this mean? You can take from it what you want. But when I see the Big South with a better home record than the Big East, I have to wonder how much of an impact an intense crowd has. Sure, it has some impact, since there is a general trend for the conferences with the more avid following to be near the top. But the fact that it took five years of data to uncover a weak trend, and that there isn’t much consistency for a given conference from year-to-year*, tells me that factors that affect basketball as a whole (travel, change in routine, etc.) have more impact than factors specific to any conference (size/intensity of crowds, or "dominant courts").

*Some support for that idea – the average year-to-year correlation of conference rank in home court win% over the past 5 years is .24. Compare that to the average correlation of RPI rank over the same time of .92. Or looking at it more simply – the average change in RPI rank from year-to-year for a particular conference is 2.7, and for home court rank it’s 8.6.