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Ohio Basketball Topic
Topic: Official Game 27 Thread: Bowling Green
Page: 4 of 4
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OhioCatFan
2/24/2020 3:51 PM
100%Cat wrote:expand_more
OhioBobcat: Enjoyed reading your analysis of MAC basketball arenas. I disagree that Worthen looks more like an athletic facility than the Convo. And I think the Convo is still the best basketball facility in the MAC. But I agree with you that Toledo has the ideal set up.

I attended the hockey games here over the weekend. Sellout both nights in a 2000 seat arena. It is just so much more electric and fun when an arena is nearly full and loud. I don't think there's any way to reduce the Convo capacity, but 10,000 would be nice. Maybe even 8,000. I think we are stuck with a cavernous arena due to budget limitations. If the money were available, a total renovation of the Convo or building something new from scratch would be awesome. But the next step is to build a practice facility.
As much as we enjoy the place, it's too damn big for the demand at Ohio. And no matter what Boals does, there isn't going to be a demand for 13,000 seats for sports in that building again soon. I felt the opportunity was there to change this when the re-did the seats, by making each seat a little wider, and thereby reducing upper level capacity by maybe 20-25%. Another thing would have been to eliminate seats in the last 2-3 rows altogether. Those ships have sailed.

I think if they're thinking of a renovation, they should re-think it, and bulldoze the whole building and build a facility that includes a practice facility. Of course this is totally hypothetical, because to do so would require having what, $100-150 million to spend? That doesn't exist at Ohio right now.
And time. A facility that big would take time to build, meaning it would almost have to be on a new site so the Convo would remain in use until it was complete.
We should do this at the same time we build BTC's new 45,000 seat stadium for football!
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OhioBobcat
2/24/2020 5:12 PM
100%Cat wrote:expand_more
OhioBobcat: Enjoyed reading your analysis of MAC basketball arenas. I disagree that Worthen looks more like an athletic facility than the Convo. And I think the Convo is still the best basketball facility in the MAC. But I agree with you that Toledo has the ideal set up.

I attended the hockey games here over the weekend. Sellout both nights in a 2000 seat arena. It is just so much more electric and fun when an arena is nearly full and loud. I don't think there's any way to reduce the Convo capacity, but 10,000 would be nice. Maybe even 8,000. I think we are stuck with a cavernous arena due to budget limitations. If the money were available, a total renovation of the Convo or building something new from scratch would be awesome. But the next step is to build a practice facility.
I would hope that if the time ever came and the money was ever available that the practice facility and renovation were completed simultaneously. I don't think a total rebuild is necessary, as places like Dayton and Cincinnati have proven you can just work with what you have. It would be very interesting to see what an architect could visualize with the old gal.
I wonder if it would be possible to do something similar (obviously the exact same wouldn't be possible) to what Cleveland does for Rocket Fieldhouse, closing off the upper sections with some sort of temporary/removable device? Probably not feasible with the Convo, just a thought.
Schools such as Cincinnati, Clemson and Georgia Tech to name a few have done complete interior renovations of their arenas in recent years. The one I found most interesting, and would be most like a project Ohio would have to tackle IF it were to ever do something substantial to the Convo, would be Georgia Tech. I was somewhat skeptical to see Georgia Tech's original plan because they took a round arena (like the Convo), and essentially reconfigured the lower 2/3's of the arena to more of a traditional rectangular formation around the court and added an upper deck to follow. The renovation also allowed for a much wider and now open concourse under the deck split. It turned out fantastic. From the air you can still see the circular roof of what served as the cap of the old round footprint and foundation of the old venue. In short, Georgia Tech turned its round arena into a somewhat rectangular one (while added an upper deck) and it turned out very, very nice. The capacity was reduced slightly, but even when it began it was just over 9,100 and is now around 8,800. So it was still a smaller arena than the Convo. But if Ohio were to ever consider doing a major renovation, the powers that be should pay a visit to Georgia Tech and see what they did.
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GoCats105
2/24/2020 5:44 PM
OhioBobcat wrote:expand_more
OhioBobcat: Enjoyed reading your analysis of MAC basketball arenas. I disagree that Worthen looks more like an athletic facility than the Convo. And I think the Convo is still the best basketball facility in the MAC. But I agree with you that Toledo has the ideal set up.

I attended the hockey games here over the weekend. Sellout both nights in a 2000 seat arena. It is just so much more electric and fun when an arena is nearly full and loud. I don't think there's any way to reduce the Convo capacity, but 10,000 would be nice. Maybe even 8,000. I think we are stuck with a cavernous arena due to budget limitations. If the money were available, a total renovation of the Convo or building something new from scratch would be awesome. But the next step is to build a practice facility.
I would hope that if the time ever came and the money was ever available that the practice facility and renovation were completed simultaneously. I don't think a total rebuild is necessary, as places like Dayton and Cincinnati have proven you can just work with what you have. It would be very interesting to see what an architect could visualize with the old gal.
I wonder if it would be possible to do something similar (obviously the exact same wouldn't be possible) to what Cleveland does for Rocket Fieldhouse, closing off the upper sections with some sort of temporary/removable device? Probably not feasible with the Convo, just a thought.
Schools such as Cincinnati, Clemson and Georgia Tech to name a few have done complete interior renovations of their arenas in recent years. The one I found most interesting, and would be most like a project Ohio would have to tackle IF it were to ever do something substantial to the Convo, would be Georgia Tech. I was somewhat skeptical to see Georgia Tech's original plan because they took a round arena (like the Convo), and essentially reconfigured the lower 2/3's of the arena to more of a traditional rectangular formation around the court and added an upper deck to follow. The renovation also allowed for a much wider and now open concourse under the deck split. It turned out fantastic. From the air you can still see the circular roof of what served as the cap of the old round footprint and foundation of the old venue. In short, Georgia Tech turned its round arena into a somewhat rectangular one (while added an upper deck) and it turned out very, very nice. The capacity was reduced slightly, but even when it began it was just over 9,100 and is now around 8,800. So it was still a smaller arena than the Convo. But if Ohio were to ever consider doing a major renovation, the powers that be should pay a visit to Georgia Tech and see what they did.
Moreover, if Ohio did go this route they'd have to take the dorms in the Convo into account. I would imagine looking back on it they would just scrap them completely to make way for other things.
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shabamon
2/24/2020 7:19 PM
The other problem with renovating is where do you practice in the offseason and where do you play games if the renovation will take more than a year. Toledo and CMU did their gutting in under a year, but UC needed to borrow NKU's arena.
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OhioCatFan
2/24/2020 8:59 PM
GoCats105 wrote:expand_more
Moreover, if Ohio did go this route they'd have to take the dorms in the Convo into account. I would imagine looking back on it they would just scrap them completely to make way for other things.
Not sure if the original restrictions are still in effect. There was some Federal money used to build the Convo because it was to have these dorms. Perhaps, the statute of limitations has set in, and they can now be removed. Are they still actually being used as dorms? If so, that may mean that the Feds are still requiring annual reporting on the usage of this space. I'm sure someone here knows a lot more about this than I do. Just raising some questions . . .
Last Edited: 2/24/2020 8:59:47 PM by OhioCatFan
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OhioBobcat
2/24/2020 9:03 PM
shabamon wrote:expand_more
The other problem with renovating is where do you practice in the offseason and where do you play games if the renovation will take more than a year. Toledo and CMU did their gutting in under a year, but UC needed to borrow NKU's arena.
Yeah, and Georgia Tech played in the Atlanta Hawks' arena and Clemson played at the Bons Secours Wellness Arena in the Greenville for the season. TCU moved also off campus for a season and played at the Wilkerson-Greines Activity Center outside of Fort Worth. While I don't ever expect to see Ohio do a project like this, if it did, and with Athens being pretty remote, you'd have to considering options like St John Arena at Ohio State, or the gym at Ohio University Chillicothe, or a civic center type venue with an hour's drive from Athens. There would be nothing convenient about it. Every game would essentially be a road game of sorts. Obviously volleyball and wrestling would be impacted too. Practices could be done at the rec center courts or at the high school unless a practice court was built first before such a project. Again, I don't expect such a project, but speaking hypothetically, these would be some possible options to get by for one home schedule season.
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JSF
2/24/2020 10:28 PM
The University of Housted renovated Hofheinz Pavilion, which was a dump, into the Fertitta Center, which is rather nice. Only holds 7,100.

Also, I want the state of Ohio and Convo logos back.
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Ted Thompson
2/24/2020 10:57 PM
Duquesne currently renovating the Palumbo Center. They play “home” games among three sites: Division III La Roche, PPG Paints Arena (which houses the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins) and Robert Morris. They also played Radford at Ellet HS in Akron.
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JSF
2/24/2020 11:33 PM
Apparently they're doing a yearly game in Akron and it's super weird.
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GoCats105
2/25/2020 8:44 AM
Dambrot just really wants that rubber city pipeline.
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BillyTheCat
2/25/2020 10:25 AM
We could play at the closest college basketball facility to campus. Hocking Hawks would probably let us use their facility while we sunk $30Million into a renovation and addition of the skyboxes into the upper ring of the Convo. This would be supported by the new naming rights to the Convocation Center which should be announced at anytime.
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OU_Country
2/25/2020 11:36 AM
JSF wrote:expand_more
The University of Housted renovated Hofheinz Pavilion, which was a dump, into the Fertitta Center, which is rather nice. Only holds 7,100.

Also, I want the state of Ohio and Convo logos back.
7100 that they still struggle to consistently fill even with an outstanding squad.


Agreed on the two logos. The Convo logo belongs there somewhere.
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BillyTheCat
2/25/2020 2:21 PM
BobcatSports wrote:expand_more
Not able to watch but where is McDay?
Ankle injury
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longtiimelurker
2/25/2020 10:32 PM
shabamon wrote:expand_more
The other problem with renovating is where do you practice in the offseason and where do you play games if the renovation will take more than a year. Toledo and CMU did their gutting in under a year, but UC needed to borrow NKU's arena.
didn't Illinois renovate State Farm during Groce's tenure? I think they played in Chicago, Peoria and a few more roadies in that era. 3 year project from start to finish. It is round like the Convo. Acoustics are spectacular in that roundhouse for some odd reason.
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JSF
2/26/2020 1:40 AM
OU_Country wrote:expand_more
The University of Housted renovated Hofheinz Pavilion, which was a dump, into the Fertitta Center, which is rather nice. Only holds 7,100.

Also, I want the state of Ohio and Convo logos back.
7100 that they still struggle to consistently fill even with an outstanding squad.
Bernie Sanders filled it up this weekend!

I was just commenting on the quality of the renovation. U of H will never be a big draw again like it was in the 80s. Not a basketball city + the Rockets + Texas A&M not far away + horrendous traffic + being the fourth-largest city in the country means nobody cares unless it's a marquee event.
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GoCats105
2/26/2020 10:39 AM
JSF wrote:expand_more
The University of Housted renovated Hofheinz Pavilion, which was a dump, into the Fertitta Center, which is rather nice. Only holds 7,100.

Also, I want the state of Ohio and Convo logos back.
7100 that they still struggle to consistently fill even with an outstanding squad.
Bernie Sanders filled it up this weekend!

I was just commenting on the quality of the renovation. U of H will never be a big draw again like it was in the 80s. Not a basketball city + the Rockets + Texas A&M not far away + horrendous traffic + being the fourth-largest city in the country means nobody cares unless it's a marquee event.
Since moving to Austin I'm wondering how much of a draw basketball is in general in the state of Texas. People love the Mavs here, even with the Spurs only 90 minutes away. They could care less about the Longhorns unless they're winning.

It truly is a football state. I knew it was before I moved, but seeing it in person is next level.
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BillyTheCat
2/26/2020 11:03 AM
OhioBobcat wrote:expand_more
I have joked about Millett Hall in Oxford looking as if it belonged in East Berlin, so much so that it had to be the unanimous winner of the Walter Ulbricht East German architecture award of 1968. Well my return trip to the Stroh Center reminds that it had to the winner of the 2010 Midwest High School Gymnasium competition (Division I bracket.) Honestly, I think we have all seen large high school suburban gyms that are similar. Having said that, it works, a paltry, ho-hum crowd can seem so much bigger. Imagine a recruit visiting the Stroh Center and then Dayton's arena? It we get the Convo rocking again, I can only imagine the fear it would instill if you are accustom to arenas like the Stroh Center.
I was at both BG-OU games this year. Say what you will about either arena, as both have pluses and minuses. That said, both matchups this year had similar attendance figures. But only one game “felt” important. The one in the Stroh Center. Obviously some of that had to go with BG winning both games and this one was on their home floor. But as you eluded, a similar size crowd there was nearing a sellout and created a much better look and atmosphere. Whereas the game in the Convo was played in an arena 2/3 empty. Ohio could pull in 8,000 for a game and it still can’t shed the look of a cavernous, empty arena, even with a decent crowd. Take a look around the MAC at average attendance numbers. All of them get swallowed up in the Convo. It’s simply too big. And empty seats do not strike fear in any opponent. Yes, walking into a empty Convo can be impressive for the first time, and so can the once every blue moon of a near capacity crowd. But the majority of the time it’s cavernous, empty-seated look is what we have consistently seen and will consistently see. The size of the majority of the other MAC arenas are, frankly, better and more suitable. The Convo, while still a fine facility IMO, is hurt most simply by its sheer size.
Agree, we should probably just tear the building down. And start over.
Last Edited: 2/26/2020 11:04:25 AM by BillyTheCat
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OU_Country
2/26/2020 11:14 AM
JSF wrote:expand_more
The University of Housted renovated Hofheinz Pavilion, which was a dump, into the Fertitta Center, which is rather nice. Only holds 7,100.

Also, I want the state of Ohio and Convo logos back.
7100 that they still struggle to consistently fill even with an outstanding squad.
Bernie Sanders filled it up this weekend!

I was just commenting on the quality of the renovation. U of H will never be a big draw again like it was in the 80s. Not a basketball city + the Rockets + Texas A&M not far away + horrendous traffic + being the fourth-largest city in the country means nobody cares unless it's a marquee event.
The arena, by everything I've seen online, is fantastic. And when it's filled, it is LOUD.
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