I guess having the inventor of the game of basketball buried in your cemetery doesn’t get you as far as it used to. While our basketball team is a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament, our city doesn’t even merit a top 20 ranking in a new list of the best basketball cities in the country.

That’s right, let me give you a minute while you clean up the green St. Patrick’s Day beer that just shot through your nose. (Happy St. Patrick’s Day, by the way.) The folks at the financial website WalletHub have attempted to rank the “Best and Worst Cities for Basketball Fans.” Lawrence comes in at No. 22 on the list, right behind Lexington, Ky., which undoubtedly was knocked down because fans there are constantly having to learn the names of new McDonald’s All-Americans.

In terms of who took home the coveted top prize: Storrs, Conn., home to the defending NCAA National Champion University of Connecticut Huskies, who are very busy right now selling tickets to an NIT game. In case you are wondering, UConn’s powerhouse women’s basketball team wasn’t used to create the rankings for this report by WalletHub. In case you also are wondering, James Naismith has never been buried there, and his rules of basketball won’t be displayed in a multimillion dollar building on UConn’s campus.

No. 2 on the list is Chapel Hill, N.C., a fine college basketball community that also has never had James Naismith buried there. However, we can not entirely rule out the possibility that James Naismith has been “teaching” classes at UNC for the last decade or so. Rounding out the top five are: No. 3 San Antonio, Texas; No. 4 Memphis, Tenn.; and No. 5 Orlando, Fla. (That explains why Orlando is such a tourist destination. I still don’t understand why they wear such funny ears down there, though.)

As you may have guessed from the list, the report doesn’t just look at cities with college basketball teams, but also looks at NBA cities, too.

Lawrence did rank as the top basketball city in Kansas. Manhattan came in at No. 45, and Wichita was ranked No. 142 among the 300 cities examined. Lawrence, though, was not the top ranked city in the region. Oklahoma City was No. 12, Fayetteville, Ark., was No. 14 and Denver, Colo. was No. 16.

The report’s authors looked at a number of factors, including the past three season’s worth of win-loss records for teams in each city. I’m not sure where KU ranked, but Wichita was the top-ranked city in the college category. They also looked at national championships, division/league championships, number of sports bars per capita, arena sizes, and the average ticket price for season tickets. In that category, Lawrence finished last. According to the data that WalletHub used, of the 205 cities that host a college basketball team, Lawrence had the “highest minimum season ticket prices for a college basketball game.” I think what that means is that the cheapest season ticket for a KU game is higher than the cheapest season ticket for any of the other schools studied in this report. In case you are wondering, Conway, Ark. — home to the University of Central Arkansas Bears — has the cheapest season ticket prices. (The Bears take hibernation seriously during the basketball season. They were 2-27 this season.)

So, keep that in mind as you pack your bags for Conway. It ranked No. 247 overall. But that is better than one other area city: Kansas City, Mo. KC ranked No. 298 on the list. Kansas City — the city that has hosted more NCAA national championship games than any other — is the third worst basketball city in the country, according to WalletHub. Only Riverside, Calif., and Jersey City, N.J., ranked worse. I assume KC fared so poorly because it doesn’t have an NBA team, so its rankings probably were based off of the UMKC basketball program.

Still, I can’t think that Kansas City leaders are going to be too happy about this ranking. The city just recently hosted another wildly successful Big 12 Tournament.

In other news and notes from around town:

• I know, that news has left your shamrock a bit droopy today, so perhaps this will lift your spirits. A recent edition of National Geographic Traveler magazine has listed Lawrence as one of its Final 4: Our Picks for Slam Dunk College Towns. Lawrence made the list along with Chapel Hill, Spokane, Wash., home to Gonzaga, and Syracuse, N.Y., although don’t expect Jim Boeheim to hold a press conference about it.

The brief write up on Lawrence includes the tradition of “waving the wheat,” Free State Brewery, our abolitionist beginnings, the Eldridge Hotel, and, of course, Frosted Flakes and tequila at The Roost. If that doesn’t bring people flocking to town, I don’t know what will.