Basketball Player Development Center Groundbreaking Ceremony
The Athletic Department announced yesterday that it:
...will hold a groundbreaking ceremony on Monday (May 10) at 1 p.m., as construction is scheduled to begin on the new Basketball Player Development Center adjacent to Crisler Arena. The groundbreaking is free and open to the public.
U-M Director of Athletics Dave Brandon, U-M men's and women's head coach John Beilein and Kevin Borseth, as well as other university athletics staff, architects and other dignitaries will be on hand for the program.
...
Construction will be phased over a two-year period and completed in fall 2011.
If you have the time and you're in town, this is a great opportunity to show off your support of the basketball programs. The new facility...
...to be built adjacent to Crisler Arena on its east side, will be approximately 57,000 gross square feet. It will house two basketball practice courts, team locker rooms for players and coaches, and an athletic medicine area equipped with hydrotherapy.
The second floor will accommodate the men's and women's coaching staffs and administrative support, as well as feature film-viewing rooms and strength and conditioning space. The proposed design calls for a new entrance to Crisler Arena for players and coaches at the playing floor level and a new, dramatic Hall of Fame in the entry lobby. The lobby would provide a distinct identity for the basketball programs while harmonizing with the existing basketball arena and Michigan Stadium.
It's been said before, but this facility should prove to be quite a boon to Michigan's ability to recruit top players.
Now lets just get a plan for a Crisler renovation and finish the last major project on the athletic campus.
Whaddaya mean, "last major project?" A couple of years from now, when UM is competing for National Championships in football and demand for tickets is at an all-time high, another stadium expansion with an upper deck to expand the Big House to over 140,000 so that no other school can even dream of playing "anything you can do I can do better" will be looking pretty good.
This will be especially important if Tennessee, with its massive inferiority complex, decides to try and become the largest stadium again in another year or two. I miss the old days when the Big House was bigger than other schools even dreamed of building. I would love to see it be that way again soon.
know if you're being sarcastic... but IIRC michigan already stated that they are not going to get into a pissing match with other schools over the size of their football stadiums... this came up when the rumors of texas a&m wanting to close off the open end of their stadium which would have made their capacity around 120,000 i believe... as for tennessee i don't think they can expand anymore then they already have... its my understanding that their stadium is more or less peiced together and when they were done expanding it the last time they themselves no room to expand further...
It's what I like to call 'Phase II'
Just wait till the AD decides to add seats on top of the sky boxes.
If we sell "premium" seats in blimps circling overhead do they count in the attendance figures? Just a thought.
Tennessee would never even attempt it.
We could add jumbotron screens to the bottom of the blimps.
I can see the commercials now:
"Look, our seats got wings."