Sooner head coach Porter Moser thinks the time has come for a new home for Oklahoma basketball.
Lloyd Noble Center, located on the south side of the OU campus, has been the home of Oklahoma basketball since 1975.
Dave Bliss was in his first of what would be five seasons as the Sooners’ head coach when the LNC opened. Oklahoma’s first game in its new nearly 11,000-seat arena was against its longtime rival the Texas Longhorns. Texas prevailed in the game 60-55.
Oklahoma finished with a home record of 5-5 in the opening season of the LNC with an average attendance of 4,688. Only one time in the now 47-year history of the Lloyd Noble Center has the Sooner men experienced a losing record at home. That was in the building’s third season, 1977-78, when OU went 4-6 at home.
During his weekly press conference a week ago, Moser said, “I definitely think it’s time for a new arena for a lot of reasons.” The Oklahoma head coach said he has been talking with athletic director Joe Castiglione about it since he was hired, and “he’s (Castiglione) very much in those conversations and very aggressive with those conversations.”
Since he first set foot in Norman last spring, Moser has been adamant that he wanted to boost attendance at the LNC get more of the student fan base to come out to the basketball games.
“There have been people who have had two arenas since (1975). It’s a huge part of what we want and the direction we want to go,” Moser said.
This is not the first time a new arena has been proposed for Oklahoma basketball. Nearly five years ago a group of private investors put together a plan for a new arena in North Norman using tax increment financing. The proposal was eventually voted down by the Norman City Council.
Aside from the natural boost it would be expected to provide recruiting, it could also serve as an attraction to bring out more fans to the game. The question is: How long would the newness and its attractivity to the fans last?
A winning basketball program is the best way to boost fan interest, and that has been mostly missing, with a couple of exceptions under Lon Kruger, since the Billy Tubbs and Kelvin Sampson eras in Norman (in the 1980s and through the early years of the 2000s).
During Tubbs’ 14 seasons at Oklahoma, the Sooners averaged over 10,000 in attendance on a regular basis. OU won 87 percent of its home games (195-28, .874) under Tubbs. From 1982-83 through the 1989-90 season, the Sooners were an incredible108-2 in their home building, including five undefeated seasons.
OU’s success at home and overall continued under Sampson. The Sooners were 135-17 at Lloyd Noble Center in Sampson’s 10 seasons as head coach. Oklahoma averaged under 10,000 fans just twice over that time, and in five of the years attendance at the LNC averaged 11,000.
So, winning Oklahoma teams definitely fill up the arena, but hasn’t been the case lately. The last few years, however, Lloyd Noble Center has been only half filled in many nights of afternoons for Oklahoma basketball.
Lloyd Noble Center is the third smallest basketball venue in the Big 12. Looking ahead to when Oklahoma will become a member of the Southeastern Conference, nine of the 14 SEC arenas are larger than OU’s. Two of the current Big 12 teams have new arenas in the works, and both will be downsized versions of where the teams presently play.
Texas has a new $338 million complex under construction, the Moody Center, and scheduled to open in 2023. Frank Erwin Center, where the Longhorns have played since 1977 seats 16,500 for basketball. The capacity for the Moody Center is at 10,000.
Baylor has plans for a new basketball arena, The Foster Pavilion, set to open in 2024 at a cost of $185 million. The new arena will seat 3,000 less than the current Ferrell Center.
Lloyd Noble Center was constructed for $6 million (the equivalent of around $30-35 million in today’s dollars). A new arena today could easily cost north of $100 million.
It’s hard to say of a brand new basketball arena would help the Sooners will more games. It might help them attract more talented players, but they’ve been able to do that before with the current facilities.
Since basketball attendance is down universally across college basketball for multiple reasons — except for places like Kentucky, Kansas, Duke and other bluebloods of the sport — if the proposal to build a new home for OU basketball continues to gain gains traction, it would be worth considering the benefits of filling a smaller arena to the gills as opposed to a half empty bigger building.
Seems to me, when it all comes down to it, it doesn’t really matter if you have a spanking new basketball facility or not, if the product on the court isn’t good enough to attract a strong following there is no building on earth that is going to pull in the fans.