MEYER: Time to bid adieu to Case

This past Saturday, the Boston University men’s basketball team played host to Iona College, one game in a series of many in ESPNU’s Bracketbuster weekend. A few years ago, ESPN took their attention away from Duke and North Carolina for a second and realized that parity in college basketball is increasing, with mid-major programs regularly making noise in the NCAA Tournament and becoming more relevant on a national stage.

So now, the worldwide leader has decided to take one weekend out of the season and showcase some of these mid- and low-major schools with out-of-conference games against other teams we may very well see playing late into March.

In an event that was something of a big deal for Terrier basketball, the game was held in Case Gymnasium instead of Agganis Arena. Although The Roof is home to some great memories and has a pretty good gameday atmosphere, it has no place serving as the setting for BU basketball when it is on a national stage, and really has no reason to be the primary facility for the men’s basketball team altogether.

The time has come to sever ties and play all the home games at Agganis Arena.

Despite Agganis’ opening in 2005, the BU men’s team has continued to play a good majority of its games at Case. It’s somewhat of a beloved gym by many who follow Terrier basketball, and much of what these people love about Case, they absolutely loathe about The Greek.

More often than not, the argument against a permanent move to Agganis is that The Roof is always more full for games, and, in turn, there’s more crowd noise and overall enthusiasm.

However, according to attendance figures, in the games played this year at Agganis, the arena was at 42-percent seating capacity. In the games played at Case, The Roof was on average at 29-percent capacity. It may be smaller and more cramped, but Case Gym is certainly not more filled than Agganis Arena on gameday.

Another common slight against Agganis is that the team doesn’t practice there, so they don’t really have an overwhelming sense that it is truly their home court. For the greater part of the past few decades, a nice little concept has emerged in college basketball: it’s called practice facilities.

A majority of Division-I college basketball programs have separate buildings devoted solely for practicing and preparing for games, and then have much larger venues where they play their actual contests. The way that it is set up, Case Gym would make a great practice facility for the men’s team, and Agganis Arena could be used for its games.

Of these arguments supporting keeping games at Case, this one is easily the most ridiculous ‘-‘- the so-called ‘Agganis Curse.’ It is routinely pointed out how BU hasn’t had the best of luck in their games at Agganis, with a losing record to show for it. The hard times playing at Agganis are something that can be attributed to poor shooting performances and a lack of solid rebounding, but we all know it’s always easier to absolve yourself from any responsibility and just resort to claiming there’s a curse involved.

‘Curses’ only persist as long as people allow them to, or until they realize that games are actually decided by what happens on the court rather than by the influence of hell-bent supernatural forces.

The advantages that Agganis possesses over The Roof are clear, numerous and, quite frankly, pretty hard to deny.

With a maximum seating capacity of 1,800, Case Gym is by far the smallest basketball facility in America East. And it’s not like we’re talking about the palatial arenas of the Big East and the ACC here. While it does have a smaller capacity for basketball than it does for hockey, Agganis Arena still seats more than 5,000 fans. Add on concessions, box seats, a jumbotron scoreboard and air-conditioning, and you have yourself a legitimate college basketball arena.

Moving to Agganis full time is obviously an initiative that our athletic department wants to pursue, seeing that the Terriers have been playing more and more games every year at The Greek since it opened. Despite the fact that there may be an awkward transition period after leaving somewhere you played games for almost 40 years, the powers that be are obviously looking toward more long-term goals that will bring unparalleled benefits to the program in coming years.

Think about it ‘-‘- if you want to attract good recruits to BU, would you rather show off your $225 million state-of-the-art arena, or take them to a cluttered gym that’s probably smaller than the ones at their respective high schools?

And if BU ever wants to leave the America East and move to a better conference like the Atlantic 10, it helps to have a nice venue for a high revenue-producing sport like basketball.

We all have attachments to certain places, and these places may hold a great deal of emotional investment for us sports fans, but sometimes it’s just best to recognize that there are better options out there, and that the time has come to move on.