Is Mickey McCarthy back from the dead? Today’s News & Observer Sports section features a hit-piece on the RBC Center by Caulton Tudor . The article implies that NCSU’s basketball attendance in the RBC Center is so poor, that NCSU should have stayed in Reynolds. It offers historical recounts by Tom Fetzer, Herb Sendek, and perennial Play-In-Game mastermind Les Robinson. When the RBC Center was merely a proposed project, each said that the planned building was too big, and NCSU basketball would suffer. Unfortunately the arguments put forth by these three as well as Tudor, ignore key factors and give weight to irrelevant ones.

Tom Fetzer, the Raleigh mayor when the RBC Center was being planned, pushed strongly that Raleigh get an arena comparable to, but slightly bigger than, the Lawrence Joel Coliseum in Winston-Salem. After NCSU was unable to secure funding from the state, the plan to bring in a professional hockey team was proposed, essentially requiring a complete redesign of the building and a new revenue structure.

What Fetzer never seemed to understand is that since the late 80’s, the NHL’s new buildings have an average capacity of 18,723. To build something that only could seat 17,000 for basketball (just over 16,000 for hockey) in the modern era would preclude attracting a hockey team to Raleigh or the signing of a market-rate naming rights deal. Raleigh isn’t the city that screwed up, Winston-Salem is. Had NCSU gone it alone and built a 17,000 seat basketball arena, they would be the only tenant in a second-rate building that would lose as much money per year as the Smith Center in Chapel Hill does. Guess who pays that bill, Mr. Republican Party?

The article reveals that Herb Sendek, coach at the time of construction, warned that the building would be an “unmitigated disaster” if its capacity exceeded 17,500 for basketball. What turned out to be a disaster was Herb’s ability to field a team to interest the fan base. Sendek led the Wolfpack to five straight NCAA tournament appearances, yet only averaged attendance in the 14,000 range (still greater than Reynolds Coliseum’s capacity).

So why did average attendance during Sendek’s tenure fall so far short of the capacity of his ideal building? Probably because of Herb’s inability to recruit more than a handful of potential NBA players, his persistent scheduling of irrelevant non-conference foes, and the playing style of his teams. Upon Sendek’s departure his supporters said that Herb will finally go “somewhere he is appreciated”. Really? If Arizona State is that place, then why did only 7,948 bother to show up for last week’s game against Baylor? Why did only 6,800 people show up for the Arkansas-Pine-Bluff game just after the team had taken Duke to the bitter end on national television? Those numbers would make Reynolds look cavernous. On TV, his 14,000-seat arena looked absurd.

Large or small, it isn’t the arena that wins games. UNC and Kentucky have moved to bigger buildings and remained nationally significant. UNC won 89.4% of its games in Carmichael Auditorium. Since moving to the Smith Center in 1986, UNC has won 84.8% of its games. Were it not for the disastrous 3-season tenure of a bad, emotionally unstable coach, UNC’s records in both buildings would be comparable. In fact, UNC’s rate of trips to the Final Four and National Championships has actually improved since moving to the Smith Center.

In the final 19 years in Reynolds Coliseum NCSU won only 70.4% of their home games. They have won 74.4% of their games in the RBC Center. While attendance is not where many had hoped, it still is vastly higher than it was those many nights in Reynolds when the end zone seats were empty. What would attendance be if NCSU had won 2 of the last 5 national championships?

If Les Robinson’s assertion that a loud arena is worth 5 points a game were true, wouldn’t we see a distinct decline in a program’s performance after moving to a bigger arena? Wouldn’t we see schools with small arenas becoming the cream of the crop in the NCAA? Wouldn’t Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Syracuse be on the decline while Clemson, Georgia Tech, and Virginia Tech be roaring to the top? Wrong, Les. If Mike Krzyzewski’s team played in a 20,000 seat arena in downtown Durham, it would still be one of the nation’s top teams.

I went to about 400 games in Reynolds, and only on about 5 occasions did I hear that building get louder than the RBC Center during Davidson’s NCAA tournament run. How often did Reynolds reach the 119dB level seen several times during the Carolina Hurricanes playoff runs? Not often. The RBC Center can be the most feared hall in America, it just needs a team that can pull it off.

Once State puts a product on the court worthy of our time, the fans will be there. In the meantime, it is more important for the fan with the 8,000th worst seat in the building to actually be able to see the game. (The press never sat in those Reynolds Coliseum seats). NCSU fans are no different than any other. When the team is winning and has a likable coach, the fans will swarm the RBC Center. At this point they have only ever had, at most, one of those keys during the RBC Center’s first 10 years..