MVC attendance 2017-18 compared to 2016-17

[tornado]

Team ...2016-17...2017-18
Bradley -- 5488 ----- 5547 (Conference 6112)
Drake ---- 2643 ----- 3095 (Conference 3392)
Evansville- 4116 ---- 3673 (Conference 3731)
Ill State -- 5943 ----- 5036 (Conference 5407)
Ind State- 3946 ----- 3603 (Conference 3967)
Loyola --- 1862 ----- 2222 (Conference 2476)
Mo State- 4186 ----- 4527 (Conference 4737)
UNI ------ 4536 ----- 4041 (Conference 4094)
SIU ------ 4483 ----- 3829 (Conference 4259)
Valpo ---- 3086 ----- 2752 (Conference 284

the four big losers are Evansville, Illinois State, UNI and SIU..
Evansville and UNI are quite understandable given how much worse they are this year..
BUT the huge dropoffs at ISU and SIU are puzzling given that those two teams have been battling for the top 2-3 spots in the MVC pretty much all season.

Only Bradley, Drake, Loyola & Missouri State are up this year - kudos to them!!
..and shouldn't a team draw 500 more and up 10% or better during the conference season?
Bradley is the only team that does!!

[Da Coach]

Loyola may have raised their average attendance from 1862/game last season to 2222/game this year, but their attendance is still lower than their attendance was in 2012-13, their final season in the Horizon League, and lower than it was in the years preceeding that. One of the criticisms of adding Loyola was their extremely low attendance, which was more than 1000 per game lower than the worst MVC team in 2013, and 4000-8000 per game lower than many of the better drawing MVC teams. It was about 15,000 per game lower than the team they replaced, Creighton!
Here are the numbers-
2010-11 2428
2011-12 2277
2012-13 2278 joined MVC after the 2012-13 season
2013-14 1928
2014-15 1745
2015-16 1832
2016-17 1862
2017-18 2222

So actually, despite predictions that their attendance would surge after joining the MVC, it dropped substantially and has taken 5 years, and a 1st place finish in a better league to finally get Loyola back closer to where they were before they joined the MVC.

[tornado]

It will be interesting to see how many Valparaiso fans show up in St. Louis

My guess is very few..
Odd how everyone had them picked so much higher - Athlon, Lindy's - all the preseason pundits had them 4th or 5th. Then the MVC preseason poll had them 6th but everyone had them above Drake and Bradley. But I think most astute Bradley fans knew better - we all know they'd find it pretty tough in the MVC - this is not the Horizon.