Matthew Knight Arena Opens Tonight
Posted on 13. Jan, 2011 at 10:37 am by 3D in Oregon Ducks Basketball
Oregon Live – The $227 million arena is the latest product of an enormously fruitful 23-year collaboration between Portland architect Bob Thompson and billionaire Nike co-founder Phil Knight. It is, incredibly, the 210th building of Thompson’s career, cementing his position as one of Oregon’s most prominent and prolific architects. A third of those projects have been for Nike or Knight, Thompson said.
“Bob is among a very small group of architects I’ve worked with that I’d put in the genius category,” said Bart Eberwein of Hoffman Construction Co., the contractor that built the new arena and many of Thompson’s other designs. “He sees the building in his mind. Things come to him like a poem would to William Blake.”
It’s funny that nowhere in the first 10 or so paragraphs of the Oregon Live article did they mention what event is actually taking place. The Register Guard also didn’t bother to mention the game in the first half of an article addressing parking issues at MKA.
Perhaps it should have worked out like this anyway, but MKA will be the center and only piece of attention when Oregon and USC tip off tonight. From the couple times I’ve seen it from the outside to the many gorgeous photos on the internet, MKA appears to be an arena the Duck fan base can be proud of.Â
That is, at least for one night. Because truth be told, nobody is going to care what the new arena looks like if the program continues to produce loser after loser. No, tonight is not a must-win game. But the basketball program can’t continue to keep spitting out garbage or you’re going to see one expensively empty arena.
The recent success of the football team (3 games from a title game appearance, Holiday Bowl, Rose Bowl, and title game the last 4 years) is making it easy for Duck fans to sweep the last couple basketball seasons under the rug.  Let us not forget the ‘Luke Both Ways’ run when the football team wasn’t much better than average – basketball mattered in Eugene.Â
You show me a program that has a history of losing, and I’ll show you a fan base that cares less about that team than the Dukes, UCLAs, and North Carolinas of the world. The football program has spent the last decade plus swinging for the fences with crazy uniforms, changing its style of play, and upgrading facilities – all would be for naught without winning.Â
Time to win boys, time to win.
PS – Especially in a terrible conference
4 Responses to “Matthew Knight Arena Opens Tonight”
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
-
-
13. Jan, 2011
[...] The Ducks are bad. They have lost 6 straight. 3 of their best players could be out today in Armstead, Catron and Jacob. Even if they were to play they are still bad. USC is not bad. They have won 6 of their last 8 including wins over Tennessee, Washington State and UCLA. They have players that are taller than 6’6. They only lost at Kansas by 2. They don’t have the pressure to produce a win in a new $227 million arena (Check D’s last post about the arena). [...]
Fender
13. Jan, 2011
…..just wait until after this season. I really want that sandwich from my boss. In fact, I might not even eat it. I might just stuff it full of sawdust and mount it over his desk with a plaque that says “Fender’s sandwich, 2010/11″
El Rey
13. Jan, 2011
Thanks for leaving behind this steaming pile of a basketball program, Ern!
Deep in the woods…
SKI
13. Jan, 2011
I’m thinking your bet is even more of a lock now Fender. What you should do is cut that sandwich in half and send the other half to Ernie, since he’s the reason you will have won it. Plus he’s probably hungry from not having a job.