East Lansing named 3rd-best college basketball city in America

We all know how fun it is to be around East Lansing during March Madness, but it looks like the rest of the country is starting to take notice.

There’s no better place to be than East Lansing during March. The weather is warming up, the campus is buzzing and Michigan State is usually playing deep into another NCAA Tournament.

When the calendar hits March, campus is just different.

Michigan State alums and students alike know this and now the rest of the country is starting to take notice.

According to WalletHub, East Lansing is behind only two other cities in terms of best college basketball atmospheres in America.

East Lansing is behind just Durham, N.C., (Duke) and Lexington, Ky., (Kentucky) in the study’s top-three college basketball cities in the country. Notice how there are only blue bloods at the top (wink, wink). Right behind East Lansing is Lawrence, Kan., (Kansas) and Storrs, Conn., (Connecticut) to round out the top five.

A number of factors went into this ranking so it’s not just a random generation of cities with good teams, but the better your team, the better chance that city is ranked high.

They used a point scale with a number of factors weighing a certain amount. Factors such as number of college basketball teams, performance of those teams, number of championship wins, number of regular season conference title wins, number of Hall of Fame coaches, minimum season ticket price, fan engagement, number of coaches in past 10 seasons and stadium capacity contributed to the ranking.

WalletHub also ranked East Lansing as the No. 1 small city (population less than 100,000) for college basketball fans in the country, right ahead of Lawrence, Kan. East Lansing was also tied for first nationally in most engaged fans and No. 5 in best-performing college basketball team.

Long story short, East Lansing is the place to be in March.