Bearcats Set to Unveil Renovated Fifth Third Arena Thursday Night

The arena will be unveiled Thursday night at 7 p.m. when the Bearcats take on Division II Tusculum in an exhibition game.

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Bearcats Set to Unveil Renovated Fifth Third Arena Thursday NightBearcats Set to Unveil Renovated Fifth Third Arena Thursday Night
Carl Schmid - Cincinnati Athletics
By Bill Koch
GoBearcats.com

 
CINCINNATI – Even though every tiny detail hadn't been completed, the new Fifth Third Arena was already bursting Wednesday with fan amenities and a bright, sparkling look that should delight University of Cincinnati basketball fans who have been waiting a long time to see their team play in such an impressive facility.
 
The arena will be unveiled Thursday night at 7 p.m. when the Bearcats take on Division II Tusculum in an exhibition game. More than 9,000 tickets in the 12,012-seat arena have been sold, which might be a record for a UC exhibition game. The first regular-season game is scheduled for next Wednesday against Ohio State.
 
UC head coach Mick Cronin has been campaigning for a new arena for years. Now that the $87-million privately-funded renovation has been completed, the result is everything he could have hoped for after 20 months of waiting after the project was approved by the Board of Trustees.
 
The building opened in 1989 as Shoemaker Center and hadn't undergone a significant upgrade since then.
 
"There were a lot of key moments behind the scenes in the development of the new arena," Cronin said. "I'd say the biggest one would have been our board's directive with Tom Humes as president at the time. It started off as trying to dress it up for a cheaper number and the board directed that if we're going to do it, we need to do it right, do it all the way, and make sure that we're not looking to re-do it in five or ten years. That was the key moment. It's tremendous. Our fans will be shocked at how fan-friendly it is and how first-class it is."
 
The UC players have also waited patiently for the chance to play in the new building. They were forced to play their home games last season at Northern Kentucky University, and, while the transition year went smoothly, it wasn't the same as playing on campus in a shiny, new facility.
 
Fourth-year junior forward Tre Scott remembers hearing about the new arena during his recruiting visit, but it took a long time for the process to unfold, so long that at times Scott wondered if it would ever be built.
 
"But Coach Cronin told us that it was coming," Scott said. "I believed what the man said."
 
Scott and his teammates are especially looking forward to having a locker room on a par with most of the other top programs in college basketball.
 
"It's an up-to-date locker room," Scott said. "It gives me a professional feel when I walk in there, especially seeing our names at the top. I just feel way more comfortable in there and I was only in there twice for like 30 minutes."
 
"It hasn't been good for them for the last year or so, comparatively," Cronin said. "Nowadays, student-athletes at the high level in the revenue sports of football and basketball, they live pretty well in their locker rooms. We have not had that for a long time. But our guys haven't said a word about it."
 
As much as he loves the new arena, Cronin's focus is on how his team is progressing from a competitive standpoint. The Bearcats lost three talented starters from last year's 31-5 team, including two players – Gary Clark and Jacob Evans – who are now playing in the NBA. UC will have veteran players in new roles and new players trying to fit in with a new team as it seeks its ninth straight NCAA Tournament berth.
 
The new-look Bearcats got their first taste of top-level competition Sunday in Indianapolis during a scrimmage with Notre Dame.
 
"You're not really going to learn anything until you play another good team," Cronin said. "Notre Dame's got good players and a great coach. They posed a lot of different challenges that we had to deal with. I tend to focus on not turning the ball over, guys making good decisions on offense, when to shoot and when to pass. Right now Jarron (Cumberland) is our best passer. It's not even close. We've got to get other guys that find the open man."
 
Tusculum, which is located in Greenville, Tenn., was 6-21 last year, so the competition will be quite a bit less challenging Thursday compared with what the Bearcats faced against Notre Dame. But on the night of the unveiling of the new Fifth Third Arena, most fans will likely be more interested in seeing the building than they are in seeing how the Bearcats handle a Division II team on the floor.
 
Not so with Cronin.
 
"This team, I think, they want to prove some things," Cronin said. "I have to give them confidence because they haven't felt a ton of confidence from the outside. I don't think they feel as respected as last year's team. But why should they be? There's too many unknowns. I've tried to make sure that they know that I believe they can be really good because I think they're wondering themselves a little bit."
 
Bill Koch covered UC athletics for 27 years – 15 at The Cincinnati Post and 12 at The Cincinnati Enquirer – before joining the staff of GoBearcats.com in January, 2015.