I made a similar thread last year when our beloved Hokies made the NIT, so I figured this would be fun to do again. However, since NCAA games are played at neutral sites whereas the NIT higher seeds get to host games, there's only a couple of these that will actually make an appearance on your TV (like Dayton's arena, which hosts the First Four). For the purposes of this thread, I'm going to list the arenas in 1-68 order according to the seeding released by the NCAA found here:
So, here we go!
1. Villanova - The Pavilion - 6,500, Wells Fargo Center - 21,600
2. Kansas - Allen Fieldhouse - 16,300
3. North Carolina - Dean Smith Center - 21,750
4. Gonzaga - McCarthy Athletic Center - 6,000
5. Kentucky - Rupp Arena - 23,500
6. Arizona - McKale Center - 14,644
7. Duke - Cameron Indoor Stadium - 9,314
8. Louisville - KFC Yum! Center - 22,090
9. Oregon - Matthew Knight Arena - 12,364
10. Florida State - Donald L. Tucker Civic Center - 12,100
11. UCLA - Pauley Pavilion - 12,829
12. Baylor - Ferrell Center - 10,284
13. Butler - Hinkle Fieldhouse - 9,100
14. Florida - O'Connell Center - 10,133
15. West Virginia - WVU Coliseum - 14,000
16. Purdue - Mackey Arena - 14,804
17. Virginia - John Paul Jones Arena - 14,593
18. Minnesota - Williams Arena - 14,625
19. Notre Dame - Purcell Pavilion - 9,149
20. Iowa State - Hilton Coliseum - 14,384
21. SMU - Moody Coliseum - 7,000
22. Cincinnati - Fifth Third Arena - 13,477
23. Maryland - Xfinity Center - 17,950
24. Creighton - CenturyLink Center - 18,320
25. St. Mary's - McKeon Pavilion - 3,500
26. South Carolina - Colonial Life Arena - 18,000
27. Michigan - Crisler Center - 12,707
28. Dayton - UD Arena - 13,435
29. Wisconsin - Kohl Center - 17,230
30. Miami - Watsco Center - 8,000
31. Arkansas - Bud Walton Arena - 19,368
32. Northwestern - Welsh-Ryan Arena - 8,117
33. Vanderbilt - Memorial Gymnasium - 14,316
34. Seton Hall - Prudential Center - 18,711
35. Michigan State - Breslin Center - 14,759
36. Virginia Tech - Cassell Coliseum - 9,847
37. Oklahoma State - Gallagher-Iba Arena - 13,611
38. Wichita State - Charles Koch Arena - 10,506
39. Marquette - Bradley Center - 18,717
40. VCU - Siegel Center - 7,637
41. Xavier - Cintas Center - 10,250
42. Providence - Dunkin' Donuts Center - 12,410
43. Wake Forest - Joel Coliseum - 14,665
44. Rhode Island - Ryan Center - 7,657
45. Southern California (USC) - Galen Center - 10,258
46. Kansas State - Bramlage Coliseum - 12,528
47. Nevada - Lawlor Events Center - 11,536
48. Middle Tennessee - Murphy Center - 11,520
49. UNCW - Trask Coliseum - 5,200
50. Princeton - Jadwin Gymnasium - 6,854
51. Bucknell- Sojka Pavilion - 4,000
52. ETSU - Freedom Hall Civic Center - 6,000
53. Vermont - Patrick Gym - 3,266
54. Winthrop - Winthrop Coliseum - 6,100
55. New Mexico State - Pan American Center - 12,842
56. FGCU - Alico Arena - 4,633
57. Kent State - Memorial Athletic and Convocation Center - 6,327
58. Iona - Hynes Athletic Center - 2,611
59. Northern Kentucky - BB&T Arena - 9,400
60. Troy - Trojan Arena - 5,200
61. Jacksonville State - Pete Mathews Coliseum - 3,500
62. North Dakota - Betty Engelstad Sioux Center - 3,300
63. Texas Southern - Health and Physical Education Arena - 8,100
.JPG)
64. South Dakota St. - Frost Arena - 6,500
65. UC Davis - The Pavilion - 7,600
66. N.C. Central - McLendon–McDougald Gymnasium - 3,000
67. New Orleans - Lakefront Arena - 8,785
68. Mt. St. Mary's - Knott Arena - 3,500
Comments
Looking at some of those with several thousand more seats than VT, it looks like the extra seats are just from another ring up top. Wonder if those seats have an awful view? Also Vermont looks like a high school gym when you scroll through quickly, just jumps out at you.
eh its not to bad unless youre in the upper tier of the student section in which case depth perception becomes an issue. but if you have a side seat its not bad at all
Yeah, Vermont & Iona have tiny arenas/gyms. While searching for pictures, it appears as if Vermont has proposed a new arena with around 5,000 seats that would surround all four sides of the court with fans.
And for what it's worth, a handful of these arenas have recently undergone renovations, like Florida's O'Connell Center. A few are slated for upcoming renovations too, like Northwestern's Welsh-Ryan Arena.
The other thing that stood out while undertaking this post: I noticed lots of these arenas have had new scoreboards installed. It made finding relatively up-to-date pictures very difficult, as lots of these buildings have upgraded center-hung scoreboards in the past few years. And it's not just the biggest names, but representatives of one-bid leagues like UNCW and FGCU are included in that group too.
Thanks, this was the last piece to my bracket algorithm:
Play in Game Pick: Worst Record
First Round Pick: Alphabetical Order
Second Round Pick: Most Letters in School Name
Third Round Pick: Stadium Size
Final 4 Pick: Longest amount of time since a Head Coach left school for a new job.
Championship Game Pick: Primary School color is closest to Maroon
Champion: Mascot rarity
Surprised how large Creighton's arena is.
The CenturyLink Center in Omaha wasn't just built for Creighton, nor is it on campus. It's only a mile away, but it's actually part of the Omaha Convention Center and built mostly with public money.
Creighton basketball has great support from the community though and they are the primary building tenant.
The KFC Yum Center makes most NBA arenas look small.
...and it shows so well on TV. I'm always impressed with the quality of the light on Pitino's hair.
It also has the stupidest name.
Although "Fifth Third Arena" is a close second.
(or third, or fifth)
Naming rights belong to Fifth Third Bank in Ohio, which is so named because Fifth National Bank and Third National Bank merged when prohibition was becoming popular, so Third-Fifth was out because they thought it was too close to a reference to alcohol.
Not to say it isn't stupid, but there is a reason.
Yes, a stupid reason.
What strikes me is how small Cassell looks from pictures that are taken vs how many seats it actually has. Very deceiving, and it happens with all of the images you see. Something about that ceiling just makes the seating bowl look tiny.
That being said, I cannot wait until they unveil the plans for Cassell's extensive renovation in the coming years. I really want to see what plans our administration has to bring the facility up to the level of its peers. From what I understand, Step 1 is happening this summer when we are getting the new wider padded maroon seats and changing up the court design to align better with our 2016 rebrand (design change will be more than just changing the typeface, I'm hearing it'll at least involve a variety of wood stains as well).
We can hate on UVA all we want, but man JPJ is gorgeous.
Agree, it's a great new stadium because they have a lot of slope. I don't like the stadiums with little slope.
Another great one is the Knight Center at Oregon. Leaving out the floor design, which is polarizing (I love it), the steepness of the stands makes for a really impressionable playing experience.
To me it looks like the floor needs to be refinished. Don't like it at all.
It is pretty nice. I do wonder how well it will age but they definitely gave themselves a nice palette to build off of for the future.
That being said, as is the case with many of these multi-use arenas, the higher up you go, some of those sight lines get pretty rough.
When we renovate Cassell, I hope we are able to still keep the feel of the main bowl and preserve the sight lines we have.
I've been in almost those exact seats at JPJ for concerts and they're not unbearable. The view of the stage isn't as terrible as that picture makes it out to be. Basketball games from up there would be dreadful though.
(sidenote: is that picture from the Eagles show there last spring?)
No idea, found it on the Googlewebs.
And don't get me wrong, I have similar issues with other arenas I've been in. PNC in Raleigh, those nosebleeds aren't the best for hockey, and for basketball they're downright terrible. I've sat up in the corner of Cassell before, and I'll take that kind of seat any day of the week compared to the nosebleeds in any of these multi-use facilities. Cramming seats at or above the rafters is never a good idea.
Wouldn't know. Of all 68 stadium pictures, UVA was the only one blocked. I have a new found respect for my work computers loyalty.
It is kinda pretty. Is the picture is from the spring festival?
1. Big sigh. I wish we could build new.
2. How the heck does Northern Kentucky play in something as nice as BB&T Arena?
Most of these smaller schools with new gyms had previous facilities that were so bad they had to build new. That's one of the problems with Cassell, it's not bad enough to tear down and a tough challenge to renovate to the specs of the mid-level arenas on this list.
UVA had UHall about the same age as Cassell and just built JPJ in the parking lot next to it. But UVA has more money and seemingly betteraccess to big money donors than we do. They also constantly bitch around their campus about the cost of JPJ and I believe they are finally about to demo UHall.
They built JPJ for the same reason we build the SEZ and put up the Beamer Towers on Lane. You need your money maker to also be the showpiece sport of your school. UHall was a disaster for them, and they made the absolute right call in replacing, as it helped change their attitude from being a program living in the past towards one building for the future.
My hopes of what Whit does is similar for VT basketball. Having Cassell is nice, but aesthetically it really doesn't fit Virginia Tech. The amount of Hokiestone within that facility is criminally low for how much we've made that a part of our athletic identity, and the whole feel of that building is of something stuck in the 60s, which is counter towards our overall branding of a university completely dedicated towards shaping the future of at least the engineering world. I suspect our reno will address all of these issues.
I had heard the renovation was going to include one additional spider-leg-bay towards Washington St and include a Hokie Stone face to address that issue. The additional bay would alleviate some of the concourse traffic issue and/or create space for a north-end suite(s). Maybe that convoluted mess on the south-end could be reconfigured to create a suite(s) on that end as well?
UHall also had some serious issues with that clam shell roof that were going to require lots of money to repair and still host events of that size, if I remember correctly. Much like Cassell, they were faced with trying to upgrade something with a limited life expectancy or shell out for a new arena.
EDIT: This was when I was in HS. 5 years later they broke ground on JPJ.
Keep in mind, Northern Kentucky is just across the river from Cincinnati (as in, 10 minutes from downtown) so it's in a large metropolitan area. It was built to get mid-tier events in the region. It's much smaller than US Bank Arena in Cincinnati proper, which holds 17,500.
Some of these arenas (like ETSU's) aren't on-campus either, as they are event centers for the region. When you're trying to lure musicians and other types of entertainment, having a modern arena is important for those locales.
Fun fact: while University of Cincinnati renovates Fifth Third Arena next year, they will be playing at Northern Kentucky's arena.
I was surprised that ETSU doesn't play in the Mini-Dome anymore. Do they still have it? Haven't been in Johnson City in quite a while, obviously.
It's still there but it's basically a practice facility, at this point. They are building a new football stadium and tearing down the dome. Not sure if there are plans to build a new on campus basketball arena.
That Oregon floor looks like someone took the time to varnish the floors only to then spill a giant vat of acid right in the middle of it. I can only hope that they melted in their mistake a la Judge Doom
Xavier has a similar scene but more refined (city-scape vs. forest-scape).
I really like both of them but understand that's it not for everyone.
Four of those stadiums have the basketball goals suspended from the ceiling.
To my extreme surprise, Duke is one of them.
There's no way Duke is 9,300.
I've been in Allen Fieldhouse when it's empty. It looks like only 10-12k, but the seats are incredibly narrow with little legroom so 16k is plausible. Some colleagues and I were given a private tour of the entire facility when I was doing some work for KU maybe 5 yrs ago. I seem to recall being told by the Asst AD (or whoever was giving us the tour) that the Fieldhouse was somehow exempt from fire code restrictions on occupants. I can't recall exactly how they pulled it off, but it was kinda sneaky/clever.
No one just waltzes into the Texas Southern Health and Physical Education Arena and strolls out with a W.
Even though this wasn't my intention, putting a bunch of pictures together like this gives a decent idea of what could potentially be done to renovate Cassell.
I'm just a landscape architect by trade and certainly not an architect or structural engineer, but looking at Minnesota's Williams Arena makes me wonder if it would be possible to add a second deck in Cassell. However, Williams Arena has potential obstructed views that come from the support poles of those decks.
Now, perhaps you could negate some of those potentially obstructed views by making those areas premium seating at the concourse level (a la Xavier's Cintas Center, just underneath a potential overhang).
Again, not sure if any of that is even feasible. But hey, fun to speculate.
Oregon's stadium looks like it should be rated double black diamond when descending.
If you could replace Cassell with one of the others, which would you choose? I'd take Southern Cal's. I like its still a smaller venue (~10k), but lots of luxury suites and the upper level is only on the sidelines.
Personally I'd like to have Michigan State's Breslin Center. The student's get up close seats that don't obstruct sightlines, and it has a decent capacity at 14k. I think it's the best of both worlds.
Agreed on Southern Cal's, but K-State's looks good too. Would be nice to have the USCw Song Girls too, while we're fantasizing.
The picture of the Galen Center is a bit deceiving actually - there is an upper deck on one end, just not the end showing in the picture.
Kinda like Xavier's Cintas Center, which is one of my favorite ~10k arenas shown here. I think that Cassell could get away with less premium seating though, since the NRV doesn't compare to the Cincinnati region.
On my CBB bucket list, visit:
Allen Fieldhouse
Rupp Arena
Hinkle Fieldhouse
My sister-in-law went to law school at KU, wanted to go to a Christmas break game against Toledo there. Still couldn't get tickets for anywhere in the Phog for under $100. Though I did accidentally walk in the door to the visitor locker room area when I went to go see the basketball museum there. I probably could have walked right onto the floor if I wasn't afraid security was right on the other side of the door.
Florida Gulf Coast sure has a nice scoreboard for an arena that seats less than 5k.
Yep. FGCU, UNCW and Winthrop all have nice scoreboards for relatively small arenas. VCU too:
It's pretty clear that those schools understand that basketball is the lifeblood of their athletics program and the investment shows in obvious ways. UNCW recently completed a re-branding of their athletics logos and they installed a new court before this season to incorporate the new brand identity. The results look sharp in my opinion:
Virginia Tech doesn't have to worry about basketball being the money-maker for its athletic department, but hopefully the next couple of years bring Cassell up to a higher standard in terms of amenities and aesthetics.
I follow your logic, but shouldn't UVa have the nicest Lacrosse stadium in the country, then? It's what they do best, after all.
They play at Klockner Stadium, which is ok, as small sports stadiums go. They also play soccer there. Think of it as a very nice HS stadium, with a few luxury boxes, and a really expensive name.
Man I love me some Hiltin coliseum, those pioneer symbols on the floor are awesome! Plus Iowa state is a pretty cool college
Wow - Providence has a really nice arena. I'm a big fan of their space.
It is definitely nice.
It's also another one that's not on campus - while it was partially built to accommodate increasing demand for Providence's basketball teams, it was also built as an event center for the region. It's now owned by the Rhode Island Convention Center Authority.
I just came to the realization that I really want Notre Dame and North Dakota to play.