LITTLE ROCK — A blue-chip basketball recruit, Jordan Mickey, said he had a great visit to the University of Arkansas and that the facilities were nice.
Bud Walton Arena was just nice?
Bud Walton remains one of the premier on-campus basketball venues in the country.
Yes, some updates are in order, but as you turn onto Razorback Road, Bud Walton grabs your attention like a new pair of pliers on an old bolt.
It rises strong and majestic.
A place so full of intensity during games that the Razorbacks were 74-8 at home during the first five years it was open.
No need to go into the past five years’ home record. If it wasn’t broken, Mike Anderson wouldn’t have been asked to come home and fix it.
The recruit’s impression may have had nothing to do with Bud Walton, though, because the next thing he told Richard Davenport, “The Recruiting Guy,” was that ground would be broken on a practice facility after the conclusion of the 2012-2013 season.
Basketball practice facilities are the craze now. Whatever starts with the NBA trickles down to the college ranks.
Ole Miss’ practice facility is nicer than the arena where the Rebels actually play games. It isn’t convenient either, but a visitor learned why it wasn’t built on the area next to the Tad Pad: That’s a Confederate cemetery, he was told.
To my demographic group, it makes no sense to spend money on a facility just for practice.
That home-court advantage is more than the fans. It includes knowledge of the rims and any quirks in the floor. So it would seem that practicing where you play would be a good thing.
Yeah, sure, there are always scheduling problems with the women’s team, but that has been worked out for decades.
However, if a practice arena is what it takes to land recruits like Mickey, who has 40 scholarship offers from a list of schools that includes Ohio State, Louisville, West Virginia, Oklahoma and Arkansas, then break out the shovel and order the concrete.
Before practice arenas, when your home venue was the main seller, Razorbacks teams were 125-46 overall in the first five years Bud Walton Arena was open.
The past five years, Arkansas teams have gone 87-73 overall.
That’s not just coaching. Recruiting counts, and obviously Anderson needs the latest and greatest to compete with all the top-echelon schools that already have practice facilities.
Too bad they can’t do what Kentucky does and have a Razorback Lodge. Apparently the NCAA grandfathered in the Wildcat Lodge, where the 13 men’s basketball players live in luxury. Huge rooms with two king size beds, private dining.
Of course, there are 13 regular students who live there, too. They may or may not be the student managers for the basketball team.
Kentucky’s practice facility is its old arena, Memorial Coliseum, which has been renovated but still holds some of the charm from those glory days under Adolph Rupp.
It isn’t a shock or surprisethat Mickey knew Arkansas was building a practice facility.
Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long, a visionary, has a master plan and said from Day 1 that it included a practice facility for basketball.
He knows in this everchanging world of athletics that keeping up with Kentucky and Kansas is important. He also knows getting competitive basketball back is a priority. There is too much money in those empty seats.
Basketball practice facilities have become a necessity.
Sports, Pages 19 on 06/27/2012