When folks are looking for a place to vacation, maybe they consult well-traveled friends. When they’re looking for a place to eat, maybe they ask their favorite foodie or consult Yelp.
The bottom line, when you’re looking for the best, it’s usually good to ask the experts, the true connoisseurs with experience and discerning tastes.
We’re taking the same approach to find the best college basketball venue in America.
Athlon Sports polled a dozen college basketball media members — both writers and broadcasters, professional journalists and former players and coaches — on their top arenas. We asked each to rank their top in terms of atmosphere, experience and amenities. In short, where would they recommend fans go to see a game.
Athlon tabulated all of their ballots, giving each No. 1 10 points all the way to one point for No. 10.
Some of the results were surprising. Some were not. While we expected Kansas’ Allen Fieldhouse and Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium to be the top two, we were taken aback at how much separation there would be between those two and the rest of the field. Indeed, Kansas and Duke were the only arenas to appear on all 12 ballots.
We were pleased to see the diversity in picks, too, beyond just our top 10. Our panel picked arenas form coast to coast, stadiums from major conferences and the mid-major ranks, and venues old and new.
Slideshow: Images from the Top 10 Arenas
Here were the final results:
Slideshow: Images from the Top 10 Arenas
