The Most Compact Conference In The Country Is The MAAC

Despite all the turmoil created by conference realignment, some have been better than other at keeping the geographical integrity of their league intact. In fact, the one that’s done the best job is the MAAC.

This germination for this post came from an interesting question that was raised yesterday on Twitter.

@Title_BU it sounds like it, but you forget that the @HorizonLeague is the most geographically compact conference in D-I. @thesummitleague

— PantherU.com (@PantherU) December 4, 2015

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Well, I had a bunch of free time this weekend, so I decided to figure it out. And it turns out the MAAC is the most compact conference in the country. Last season MAAC teams traveled an average of almost 1,080 miles during their conference schedule. The most? The WAC at more than 7,000 miles.

Here’s how I did it:

1. I downloaded arena data from Basketball State.
2. I plugged those arenas in Google’s Geocoding API.
3. I found conference away schedules by using Ken Pomeroy’s website.
4. I then calculated the distance of the schedule using the GPS coordates of each team’s home arena.

Note: I tried doing this for 2015-16 season, but there are currently too many errors in the game location data available online for me to feel confident in the results. Because all the 2014-15 games have been played (and I checked the data), it feels much more reasonable to use it, even though it doesn’t include say NJIT in the Atlantic Sun.

You already know the extremes, but here’s the entire list:

1. MAAC: 1,079 miles
2. Ivy League: 1,178
3. OVC: 1,436
4. Big South: 1,505
5. Patriot League: 1,646
6. America East: 1,742
7. MAC: 1,768
8. Horizon League: 1,781
9. NEC: 1,962
10. Southern Conference: 2,009
11. Southland: 2,337
12. MEAC: 2,454
13. SWAC: 2,477
14. MVC: 2,556
15. Atlantic Sun: 2,698
16. CAA: 2,811
17. A-10: 2,919
18. Big Ten: 3,572
19. SEC: 3,680
20. Summit: 3,961
21. ACC: 4,043
22. WCC: 4,199
23. Big 12: 4,478
24. Sun Belt: 4,543
25. Big East: 4,705
26. Big Sky: 5,025
27. Pac-12: 5,454
28. Big West: 5,460
29. C-USA: 6,006
30. American: 6,659
31. MWC: 6,988
32. WAC: 7,238

Note: In this section you can click to enlarge any map.

In case you’re curious. Here’s what the MAAC looks like visually (it’s super compact!):

And here’s the Big South. One of the more surprising ones near the top of the list:

And finally, here’s why the WAC is last: