College basketball ended for Sooner fans a couple of weeks ago. Both teams were coming off of their first seasons with their own new coaches. An argument could be made that the Women’s team had the more successful season given that they made their NCAA tournament, however the Men had a great chance to make their respective tournament and fell just short. Both coaches, Porter Moser for the Men and Jennie Baranczyk for the Women, are the right coaches for the job and have the tools and personality to make college basketball in Norman truly great again.

However, both coaches are lacking a crucial element to building great teams that can compete with the best in the country: a great basketball arena that will attract high profile recruits that will be exciting to play in. It is time for the Sooners to move on and out of the Lloyd Noble Center.

But what’s so bad about the current arena? For starters it is becoming extremely dated. Both the Men and the Women have been playing basketball in that arena since 1975. The seats are not very comfortable and the viewing experience isn’t as great as it can be. Plus the seats are too far away from the court. In a great basketball arena, the seats feel as if they are right on top of the action which allows for deafening crowd noise for the opposing team.

Now, the Lloyd Noble isn’t a horrible place to watch a basketball game. When the stands are pretty well full it can get decently loud which makes the game more fun. However it has been a few years since the arena was completely filled out. Which, obviously, ticket sales come with winning. The more winning you do the more tickets you will sell. However, complete sellouts would be much easier and more attainable in a slightly smaller arena. I’m not saying make the new arena drastically smaller. But maybe taking out 1,000 seats or something along those lines could be beneficial.

The big question though is where would they put this new arena? A few ideas have been floated out about different locations, but I think the absolute worst idea, which ironically might be the front runner among university leadership, is building the new arena all the way up in University North Park. This location is up by the Max Westheimer Airport north of the main campus. The main goal that both of the new coaches are trying to accomplish is to get the student body more involved with basketball similar to football. Building a new arena that far north of campus would do the complete opposite of engaging the student body more. Less and less students would go. OU would have to build the best arena ever in that location if they want more students to come to games.

I think OU has two options if they want this new arena to be on campus and more accessible to students, one of which being more feasible than the other. The option that would be the absolute best and the coolest, would be to tear down the current Lloyd Noble Center, tear down the track and field complex that is East of the football stadium, and basically swap those two locations. Put track and field where the Lloyd Noble currently sits and move the new basketball arena right next to the football stadium. It doesn’t get more accessible for students than that. However, that would be a very costly project and one that is extremely unlikely.

The more likely option, is to tear down the Lloyd Noble and just build the new arena where the current one is. Doing this gives fans and students the familiarity in location aspect and people will know how to get to and from the arena without missing a beat. Under this scenario, the basketball teams would likely have to have a temporary home for one season, but the McCasland Field House would be a perfect temporary location for basketball games. Ironically, the Field House was home to basketball before the Lloyd Noble became the permanent home.

Right now, there really isn’t any incentive to go watch a basketball game at Lloyd Noble other than school spirit. Building a new arena could bring back some of that incentive. One that is nicer and newer and louder. The old saying goes “If you build it they will come.” Building a new arena will attract better recruits for both teams. I have no doubts about that. Especially given the coaches OU has now for both teams. OU Softball has been granted a new stadium. It’s time for Men’s and Women’s basketball to be given the same.