More on St. John Arena

Rapp Up: Pining For Good Ol' St. John

By Jeff Rapp, Basketball Analyst & Staff Writer
jeffrapp@bucknuts.com
Posted Mar 31, 2008

St. John Arena
Value City Arena has had its moments over the years but according to the columnist Ohio State basketball should keep ties with its old home, St. John Arena. The power of St. John was on display for the second round of the NIT and should not be overlooked by school officials who still don't seem to fully understand the public's thirst to connect with the program. Sensational. Tremendous. Loud.

Those were just some of the adjectives used by Ohio State men’s basketball coach Thad Matta and his players to describe the crowd Wednesday night at Value City Arena after the Buckeyes hosted in-state rival Dayton there.

That the two teams drew a sellout of 19,049 for an NIT game was headline enough. But the involvement of the fans already was under the microscope considering the Buckeyes hosted California two nights earlier at St. John Arena because of a scheduling conflict and rekindled a yen for the good old days.

While Ohio State’s season lives on – the Buckeyes boarded a plane to New York City Sunday and face Mississippi in the second NIT semifinal Tuesday night (approx. 9:20 p.m. Eastern, ESPN2) – so will the debate during the offseason as to how the university should maximize a following for the program.

It’s an interesting pickle that may have been avoided altogether if the Buckeyes didn’t have to move down Lane Avenue to St. John last week because Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band had taken up residence for the evening at much more spacious VCA.

Of course, this was Andy Geiger’s vision when he approved and set in motion construction for the Schottenstein Center, which became home for the men’s and women’s basketball teams and men’s hockey team 10 years ago (OSU also now has a women’s hockey team). The former athletic director wanted a professional sports arena that would compete for large attractions and regularly host events when Buckeye teams weren’t already on display there.

As I said earlier, the university needs to look into completely redoing VCA. I don't know how feasible that would be, but it should be considered. If there was a way to gut it and redo it in the image of SJA it definitely should be done! Maybe it would mean dropping the seating capacity a couple of thousand, but it would be worth it to gain a better atmosphere. It's not like there aren't facilities available to use until the redo is done(hello season at SJA). The university did an excellent job refurbishing The Shoe and building first class facilities for the many other sports. It should consider the same for VCA.