One of the reasons I've always had such high hopes for ETSU basketball is, believe it or not, the much-maligned Vault of Victory.

Or Mini-Dome. Or Oil Drum. Or whatever.

The reason is the seating capacity- and it has never- NEVER been utilized the way it could.

The arena is actually one of the 60 or so biggest in college basketball.

Could you imagine 12,000 fans at every basketball game cheering on the Bucs? With that kind of support ETSU could become a perennial Top 25 power instead of the program that is "just happy to be in the NCAAs."

And one of the reasons I've been so critical of high school basketball over the years is because I think that attention takes away from the real game in town that can actually win a championship cared about all over the country. When I hear about thousands going to the Arby's Classic for essentially exhibition games- I wonder why they can't come out and see a higher caliber of basketball on a nightly basis.

The talk is the new arena- if it will ever be built (don't hold your breath)- will seat about half of what Memorial Center currently does.

You don't make the Top 25- or a conference bigger than the A-Sun- in an 5000 seat arena, though.

Heck, you don't even draw good concerts.

We filled it up on both sides when we played NC state. If I remember correctly, even way back when we played Western KY one time with Sonny Smith we filled the darn thing up.

Appy State and ETSU have drawn some bring crowds when we both were good.

I suspect if we were any good at all and played in the CAA or Conf USA that we would have to have something that would seat 12 -15K. Now if off years we might have 5k but so what. UTC's roundhouse gets about 12K, so why should we settle for less than that.

Nobody wanted to come play us here when Mister was here.

Either build something nice or keep the dome for BB, don't downgrade to 5k. I guess if they are going to have King and Milligan as rivals it might not matter. Heck go back to Brooks then. Maybe we should schedule Asun games at Brook so they feel at home.

PS-Pitt, I may have sent this to you as well as PM in error. I hit the wrong button the first time.

If I looked at the RPI correctly, CAA is tenth. As I mentioned previously, how big an arena would we need for that.

Georgia State gets CAA and we get Asun.

When its full it's great, when its not it is terrible. I was in the student section at the NC St game and it was incredible. But I was way over in the other side of the center a few years later at a UTC game and those were terrible seats. But still a great atmosphere. You can look at it the same why those in Knoxville look at Thompson-Bolling Area. When Buzz was there and loosing the place was like library. There was all this talk of re-designing and re-arranging seating to make it more intimidating. There has not been one mention of that this year. Hmmmm, amazing what winning will do.

Obviously the dome isnt great for basketball, but it works. If we build a new arena, it should seat about 9,000-10,000. We dont want it to be so big that it would never fill up, and if we were good, we would get 9,000, like we did against UTC in 04. The thing that the dome lacks is a good atmosphere. It never gets loud in there because its so darn huge. A little noise would add alot.

the dome is a big empty cave. it'll be worse next season.

I've been reading posts in this forum for about a month and get more depressed each time I visit, but I continue to visit so I suppose that makes me a glutton for depression.

I'm a '94 graduate of ETSU and am completely ashamed of the shambles that has become our athletic department. When people ask me where I went to school, I defer to my graduate degree and claim Old Dominion University. I remember the early '90's - the huge crowds, the 3 point bombs of Mister Jennings, Major Geer and Alvin West and the thunderous dunks of Calvin Talford and Rodney English. The past is obviously behind us, and I'm starting to believe that we should start playing men's games in Brook's Gym (if it's still there).

That said, I do believe the Memorial Center should go. I live in Tidewater, VA and the Ted Constant Convocation Center is absolutely the model facility for a mid-major, or minor in our case. It has 8,600 seats and they are all close to the floor. Even with small crowds that place rocks. Selfishly, I was really hoping that we would make the move to the CAA, so that I could see my Alma Mater play on occasion. Having watched several CAA games this year, I now know that we would get punished by most every team in the league. Thanks to recent athletic leadership, it appears that we should be playing in the Johnson City Church League. We might draw a 5 seed behind the Pentecostals.

We have a right to be proud of our school's past athletic accomplishments and a right to be angry over major regression in our basketball and football programs.

Who'd have thought that a Hooter's cheerleader could draw more attention to our University than our basketball program.

Just my 2 cents - that and 98 cents will get you a cup of coffee.

I can see how a 8,500 arena would be perfect. Heck I'd get the blueprints from Duke and make a Cameron Indoor east. But the problem with that size of arena and configuration is that you would be limited to "renting out" the place for other events that could help pay the note (i.e., concerts, monster trucks, other sporting events, conventions, etc.). But If they ever do build something, I agree it needs to have the seats be close to the floor and not seat more than 10-12K.

ummm, I meant a Cameron Indoor west....

Yes, I remember them all. We did fill the dome against Western Kentucky back when we were in the OVC (I believe that was our last game in the OVC). We had several 10,000 plus crowds in the early 90s. The NCState crowd wasn't as large as our game against Chattanooga that year, if memory serves me. Both were 12,000 plus.

I'm not that old (45) and I remember when 6,000 was a small crowd for an ETSU game. I remember when all of their home games were carried on cable network (I watched them when I lived in Florida).

I remember years when NCState, Michigan State, Xavier and lots of other big name schools used to come visit.

It's a downright shame what has become of our Bucs. To pretend you can't have good academics and solid athletics is nonsense. I wonder how we rank against Syracuse, Boston College, Vanderbilt, North Carolina, _______ (fill in the blank) in acdemics. I noticed in the latest US Reports that we rank behind most of the Southern Conference & OVC schools in academics. Yet they still have football. They still play better basketball.

Hmmmmm.