Hurricanes Ready To Open New Home Against Tar Heels

By ADRIAN SAINZ
Associated Press Writer

CORAL GABLES, Fla. – The promise has been kept.

Many Miami basketball players, both past and present, were assured as highschool recruits that they would play in an on-campus arena during theircareers.

Senior guard Michael Simmons expected to play in such a facility sometimebefore halfway through his final season.

“It’s exciting to finally see it built and finally be able to play inhere,” Simmons said Friday on the floor of the new 7,000-seat ConvocationCenter.

“I’ve been waiting for it since I was a freshman. I’m glad to see it up andrunning and we’re going to get a good fan base here and make it exciting foreverybody.”

Miami (6-4) christens the $48 million facility Saturday against NorthCarolina (8-3). A sellout is expected for the game many have pointed to asanother step forward for a growing Miami program relegated to playing in thesparsely attended, 15,000-seat Miami Arena since 1988.

“It was just so big it didn’t really feel like home,” forward James Jonessaid. “Part of the college basketball experience is having your fans behindyou and feeling like it’s your building, letting other teams know that whenthey come into your facility that they have to come on your home turf.Sometimes, Miami Arena felt kind of neutral.”

Miami’s home attendance is annually near the bottom of the Big East. Miami’syearly per game attendance average peaked at 5,812 in 1998-99, and was 4,651last season, second worst in the conference to Virginia Tech and below thenational average of 5,053.

The Miami Arena was filled to capacity only once in 13 seasons, when 15,147fans saw Miami lose to Connecticut on Jan. 20, 1999.

Senior guard Paulo Coelho, like Jones and Simmons, was promised an on-campusbuilding and is glad to leave the Miami Arena. It is located in downtown Miamiabout 10 miles from campus and originally built for the NBA’s Miami Heat. Mostsuccessful college programs play in smaller arenas and use on-campus facilitiesto promote the program and recruit.

“It was way too much driving to go play out there, and we had to sit intraffic to go practice,” Coelho said. “The Miami Arena never really felt likeit was your home. We were playing Lehigh a week ago and we were booed when wecame out.”

The new facility has been in the works for seven years. Because Miami is aprivate school, it received no state funds for the project and had to raisemoney through donations from corporations, alumni and citizens.

Fundraising, building and zoning issues delayed the project, but ground wasbroken in April 2001. Though some painting still needs to be done, the centeris ready to host to big-time college basketball.

However, Miami coach Perry Clark is having trouble enjoying the moment, withyoung and talented Tar Heels posing a difficult first opponent in the newConvocation Center.

Freshman forward Rashad McCants leads North Carolina in scoring at 18.9points per game and sophomore forward Jawad Williams averages 13.4 points and6.3 rebounds. The Tar Heels will be without freshman center Sean May, thesecond-leading scorer and leading rebounder who broke his foot last week and isout for two months.

“So much of my attention obviously is just going into preparing for NorthCarolina. All this other stuff really hasn’t sunk in and probably won’t sink infor a bit of time yet,” Clark said.

Jones and senior forward Darius Rice combine for about 36 points per gamefor the Hurricanes, who start freshmen guards Armondo Surratt and Robert Hite.

Clark likes the building but insists a new facility is no good withoutquality talent.

“Buildings are nice, but you need players to make sure that they can bevery effective,” Clark said. “(Duke’s) Cameron (Indoor Stadium) is a greatplace to play, but the fact that (Christian) Laettner played there and GrantHill played there didn’t hurt the building at all. We need to bring in thatquality of players … and this building can create some problems (for visitingteams.)”

Still, he does relish being able to use an on-campus facility to sell theprogram and recruit as he competes for talent with the other Big East teams andin-state rivals Florida and Florida State.

“It’s nice not to lie anymore,” Clark joked. “I’ve heard stories all theway back to 1950 where people were promised a building.

“It’s nice to see that it’s actually here.”