Division II Basketball Home Court Advantage

This study investigates the persistence and determinants of the home court advantage in NCAA Division II basketball, with a specific focus on the Lone Star Conference across three seasons, including one affected by Covid-19 disruptions.While previous research has attributed home court advantage to factors such as travel distance, crowd dynamics, and season length, this study aims to reassess these variables in the context of pandemicaltered conditions.Using a combination of win-loss records, advanced game statistics, and the Pythagorean Expectation model, we analyzed data from 17 men's and 17 women's basketball teams over the 2018-19, 2019-20, and 2020-21 seasons.Despite the significant disruptions to crowd attendance, travel patterns, and schedule length due to Covid-19 protocols, the home court advantage remained statistically significant.Logistic regression revealed that home location was the only variable with a consistent positive effect on win probability, while ANOVA testing showed no significant influence from travel distance, crowd size, or season length.The findings indicate that playing at home continues to confer a meaningful advantage regardless of external disruptions.This resilience suggests that psychological familiarity, comfort with the playing environment, and routine consistency may play larger roles in home court performance than previously understood.These insights not only validate the continued importance of game location in strategic planning but also call for deeper investigation into the psychological and contextual elements of home court advantage in Division II athletics.By incorporating both traditional metrics and advanced analytics, this study offers a comprehensive assessment that contributes to sport management, performance strategy, and future research on collegiate basketball.