June 24, 2005

Champaign, Ill. - Illinois was the story of the 2004-05 college basketball season, so it's fitting that more people watched the Fighting Illini play in person on the year than any other team. Illinois led the nation in all-games attendance (home, road and neutral-site games) on the season, with a total of 711,798 fans attending Illinois' 39 games. The Illini played in front of 31 sell-outs during the year, highlighted by a crowd of 47,754 at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis for the Final Four match-up against Louisville on April 2, the highest attended game in school history.

Illinois ranked seventh in the nation in home-games attendance, with a school-record average crowd of 16,387 attending games at the Assembly Hall. Illinois sold out 13 games at The Hall, the most sell-outs in one season in school history, and set a school single-game attendance record when 16,865 were at the Assembly Hall on Feb. 12 to watch the Illini defeat Wisconsin.

The Big Ten Conference led the nation in total attendance for the 29th straight season, with over 2.2 million fans watching Big Ten basketball.