Jay Bilas' top 5 college basketball venues

[HFCS]

The thing they produced for the Iowa/ISU womens game where they interviewed random Big 12 players and coaches about the hardest place to play in the Big 12 says a lot. I'm sure it would be similar for mens teams but a lot of them would mention Phog Allen in addition to or first.

 

[CloneinWDSM]

It’s Phog, Cameron and then way down everyone else.

 

[Sousaclone]

The thing Hilton has against it is that we (unfortunately) have a lack of hardware in the trophy case and a couple of ******* years of performance.

 

[HFCS]

The thing Hilton has against it is that we (unfortunately) have a lack of hardware in the trophy case and a couple of ******* years of performance.

The crazy thing is we have the second most Big 12 hardware in the Big 12. The team that was in third (Texas) is on their way out to an easier conference.

Sucks that a few other Big 12 teams have deeper tournament runs though. Baylor obviously with the NC trophy doesn't care that we have more Big 12 titles and B12 tournaments.

I agree with you if we didn't have the McD and late Prohm years of cratering it would be even more commonly known as an insane place.

 

[cydnote]

The crazy thing is we have the second most Big 12 hardware in the Big 12. The team that was in third (Texas) is on their way out to an easier conference.

Sucks that a few other Big 12 teams have deeper tournament runs though. Baylor obviously with the NC trophy doesn't care that we have more Big 12 titles and B12 tournaments.

I agree with you if we didn't have the McD and late Prohm years of cratering it would be even more commonly known as an insane place.

Expound upon this. What is the correlation between hardware won in KC have to do with Hilton?

 

[gocy444]

Cameron Indoor is a dump. Since Coach K left it's now just a tiny outdated gym.

 

[ClonerJams]

Its funny I've seen Kentucky fans complain about the atmosphere at Rupp.

Overlooked - When they're rocking, The Pit at New Mexico and BYU are top notch atmospheres

 

[clonedude]

It's ALL about the fans... not these venues. Some of the top venues in the country are actually dumps... it's the fans that make them special.

Hilton isn't a nice facility... but the atmosphere is awesome.

What separates the top venues though is that they seem to be insane no matter who the opponent is. At Hilton... if we're playing a crap team in a non conference game... the place is about half full.

 

[cyfan92]

ISU needs a Big 12 title or F4 banner before we show up in these rankings..

 

[Acylum]

Bilas is compromised by blue bloods. I take much of what he says with a grain of salt

He’s a pompous ass.

 

[1UNI2ISU]

Assembly Hall is a weird building but my god does it get loud in there.

Mackey is also pretty great but that's more for the atmosphere than the building itself, it's the same roundhouse everybody built in the mid-60s.

Outside of those two plus State Farm Center and Breslin the Big Ten doesn't really have any memorable buildings since they did all the replacing/rebuilding in the 80s and 90s.

The Big 12 has way better venues top to bottom.

 

[madguy30]

It's ALL about the fans... not these venues. Some of the top venues in the country are actually dumps... it's the fans that make them special.

Hilton isn't a nice facility... but the atmosphere is awesome.

What separates the top venues though is that they seem to be insane no matter who the opponent is. At Hilton... if we're playing a crap team in a non conference game... the place is about half full.

Hilton has unique acoustics that even a tane crowd can make loud.

Agree on all else though.

Texas Tech can look like a hornets' nest if things are set up for it.

 

[madguy30]

ISU needs a Big 12 title or F4 banner before we show up in these rankings..

They have two regular season titles.

 

[JP4CY]

I watch quite a bit of Big East basketball and Providence has a great arena.
(I admit this is ironic since they just lost to Seton Hall)

 

[HFCS]

Expound upon this. What is the correlation between hardware won in KC have to do with Hilton?

We have the second most outright regular season titles too (with just two), that’s why it’s crazy.

Also someone said hardware and we have the second most big 12 hardware. Again just the gap between 1 and 2 in conference hardware is staggering.

Ncaa trophies aren’t given for winning home games any more than b12t is.

 

[cyputz]

A comment which caught me was “Loaded for a big game” when mentioning Indiana. Not saying Hilton is top 5, but do not put those little caveats on a ranking.

 

[intrepid27]

"Top 5" is a very undefined term IMO. Is this based on toughest to win at? Best Fan experience?

Like most sportswriter lists this is heavily based on winning %. I remember when people were throwing shade on ISU football for ripping off USC's Uniforms Some sportswriter "ranked " all the uniforms in Div I. USC was top 5 and ISU was bottom 10. The uniforms were almost Identical.

 

[FarmClone]

Might be a dumb question but has Bilas been to Hilton?

 

[awd4cy]

No I have only been to Cameron on Bilas' list, which is why I say I'm not qualified. But I'd love to hear where people who are more qualified (like Bilas, Fraschella, Dickie V, Bill Self, Roy Williams, Scott Drew, Jamie Dixon, etc) think Hilton should be ranked.

Thinking we are above Phog Allen would be completely biased.

 

[awd4cy]

Hilton is great, but I feel like the atmosphere anymore really lacks outside of the top 4 or so biggest games of the year. On the other hand many other places are struggling to even get fans to show up anymore, so at least we don’t have that problem.