It's another great Basketball venue, though - great place to watch a game!Originally Posted by -jk
The "sidelines" are wide enough that a player sliding out of bounds won't fall off the side of the raised court, but putting chairs along the sides would 1) be a little dangerous, and 2) block the view of those sitting up next to the floor (which, for Vandy games, is usually the student section.) The first row, when seated, really just sees feet at eye level.
There are a whole host of reasons why they moved the benches.
One was because of the issue with going for a layup and running under the basket, out of bounds and into the other teams bench. There were tripping issues and when guys fell into the bench guys would hold players back.
But they also moved them so that players can check into the game a lot quicker. They don't have so far to run. If you watch the pro games, the benches go so far off the court that actually guys don't need to check in any more, if they are standing "by" the table they can go in. That is because of the fan seats that are between the table and benches make the players sit so far away.
Coaches also have a better view of what was going on on the other end of the court. Easier to tell the ref he is blind if you saw the play standing at half court rather than under the basket at the other end of the court.
Coaches have better access to the refs. Sometimes they needed the attention of the refers and couldn't get them from the other end of the court. Like for timeouts. You see, as always, there should be a refer situated at mid-court (2 or 3 ref situations). Having the coach on the side lines, they can always get the attention of that half court ref. Since they went to a 3 ref situation there is always suppose to be a ref on the side of the court, not just a mid court, of where the benches are just for this reason. At Cameron there is not way Roy could get a timeout called if he was at the other end of the court.
For Vandi, it is a huge benefit. This is the only court like it and coaches and players alway seem to struggle with it. If they want to talk to their coach they have to go all the way to the other end of the court. There have been many of times during a game that this causes a player to be out of position, for the opposing team. Vandi works it just fine.
The reason for the courts being above the crowd so to speak, as in Minnesota, is because the facility is used for many other events. Sometimes there might be a hockey game one night and a basketball game the next day and a hockey game that night in that same building and this allows that to happen. They can keep the ice there and put the basketball court above it. It allows much better use of the building. You can't put the court directly on the ice because the floor would get too cold to bounce a ball on it, it would cause multiple dead spots.
Football fields are like that now because of some strange reasons. In Arizona, the field is actually rolled outside during the week and for the game during the weekend it is rolled back into the facility. This way they can say they have an indoor stadium with actual, natural grass. But the field is actually on rollers.
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