We are officially in the midst of March Madness in Greater Cincinnati, with Northern Kentucky University becoming the first local NCAA team to punch its ticket to 2019’s big college basketball tournament, which begins March 19 with the “First Four” games in Dayton.
After an exciting semi-final win Monday night against Oakland (thanks to a game-winning shot by star Drew McDonald that garnered the sharp-shooter lots of ESPN highlight-reel love), NKU beat Wright State handily last night to win the Horizon League tournament in Detroit and secure an automatic bid in the NCAA tourney.
On the heels of that first spark of local March Madness excitement, a survey released today by “personal-finance website” (and bottomless blog post generator) WalletHub ranked Cincinnati as the fifth best midsize city for college basketball fans. Durham, North Carolina, of course, was ranked as the top midsize city for college hoops, while Norman, Oklahoma came in just ahead of Cincy at No. 4 and Salt Lake City pulled up at No. 6. The top large city in the survey is Los Angeles; the top small city is Lawrence, Kansas.
Cincinnati was ranked No. 29 in WalletHub’s all-city rundown.
Check out the full survey here, plus a “by-the-numbers” infographic about NCAA basketball’s business impact this time of year here.
Here are a few metrics from the survey related to Cincinnati’s standing:
- 12th – Number of Division 1 Teams
- 11th – Winning Percentage
- 4th – Conference Championships
- 10th – National Titles
- 114th – Social-Media Engagement
The UC Bearcats play Friday evening in the American Athletic Conference tournament, while Xavier plays in the Big East tournament tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. against Creighton. Xavier will likely have to win their tournament to continue its season in the NCAAs; UC is certain to get some kind of mid-level seeding.
The NCAA Tournament Selection Show airs Sunday at 6 p.m. on CBS. It was recently announced that the bracket unveiling will return to the full reveal by region, after last year’s experiment of slooowwwly announcing the teams alphabetically, then giving the regional bracket, which infuriated many viewers.
This article appears in Mar 6-13, 2019.