Outside the Big East

[Jet915]

The Robbins Center looks beautiful. Well done on your renovation.

Thanks Dash. They really did do a bang up job.

Why did they reduce the number of seats by like 2k?

I think they put in suites and some large video screens and what not that took up space and therefore had to reduce the seating capacity.

[Moliva]

That's right. The capacity used yo be 9071 and is now a shade over7k, I believe, due to the construction of 4 large Suites in the corners.

The acoustics were improved significantly too. The place is much louder.

[Xudash]

The capacity reduction approach is not unique to Richmond.

From the little I've read about it in the past, whenever Butler gets around to renovating Hinkle, its capacity is going to be reduced as well. The Butler guys can chime in with the current idea for it, but the last thing I read about it reflected that it would end up with a capacity approximating 9000.

[HoosierPal]

The capacity reduction approach is not unique to Richmond.

From the little I've read about it in the past, whenever Butler gets around to renovating Hinkle, its capacity is going to be reduced as well. The Butler guys can chime in with the current idea for it, but the last thing I read about it reflected that it would end up with a capacity approximating 9000.

Confirmed: the new, reduced capacity I have read is 9,100. So that is loosing about 900 seats. They will be replacing bleachers with seats, increasing the handicap areas, new scoreboard, etc. They are replacing all of the windowpanes (there are like 9,700 of them) and tuckpointing the entire building (something like 275,000 bricks) Total put into this remodel is $34M. They also took out the old, stinky swimming pool in the basement and converted it into offices. The entire project is supposed to be completed by November, 2014.

[MackNova]

And none of those teams deserve to make the tournament, just like Richmond.

If Saint Louis fans were here bragging, saying they deserved a spot, that would be one thing. But Richmond is just another mediocre team that's playing for an NIT bid.

oh MackNova, please point me to the post where someone said that Richmond currently deserves an NCAA bid..... oh yeah. Thanks though.

No one said Richmond deserved a NCAA bid, but non the less a Spider did just rag on half the BE(which they are no better than) on a BE board. What kind of response did you expect? Thanks for stopping by.

That's the point...

I assume Richmond fans are on this board because they want to join the conference. Well, the last thing this conference needs is more teams that are not tournament-quality.

We don't want more teams that are happy to make the NCAA Tournament once every 5 years. We want teams that have a chance to do damage in March every once in a while, or that are perennial contenders to make the tournament.

I have no problem with Richmond, just have no interest in them joining the Big East... If I were in charge of realignment, I would have preferred Saint Louis to Butler, but that's about it. I wish Gonzaga weren't so far away.

[Bostonspider]

The Robins Center looks beautiful. Well done on your renovation.

Saturday marked the official opening of the now fully completed Robins Center, with the 4 new Hospitality Suites / Decks completed. Here are a bunch of pictures from the UR site.

[ChelseaFriar]

Love the Richmond logo. Arena looks great.

[MackNova]

That's really nice. I hope the Paviion renovations make our on-campus gym look more like that.

[Native Georgian]

I flew from the West Coast to the Midwest last week. That is one L O N G flight, and was only half way (okay 60%) across the country. No way I would have student athletes spend all that time in the air to go coast to coast.

I've made the Atlanta-LA and Atlanta-San Diego flights about 12 times and they are brutal. And that's with very short car trips on either end. I can't imagine sending college athletes from the East Coast to Spokane on a regular basis.