Moody Center is really coming along…

…I didn’t have much appreciation for the size/scale until I saw the workers in the bucket a few seconds in.

 

Vic and Co get into some hard hats…

 

Final steel beam placed (topping out ceremony)…

 

Vic has a couple of shiny new toys to pitch to recruits; the Moody Center and a potential move to the SEC conference. IMO the new facilities and the move to the SEC will give us an advantage over conference rivals like Baylor who is dealing with the transition to a new coaching staff as well as being in limbo with their future conference affiliation. In contrast to Baylor, I predict the OU program will get a boost with their new coaching staff who could reenergize their program. Baranczyk made a great hire with Amy Wright who spent 10 years in the SEC while an assistant at A&M. It will be interesting to watch how Baylor and OU programs develop over the next 3-5 years.

How handy is it that Vic is already familiar with the SEC? There is no learning curve for Vic as he already knows the SEC landscape. There will be intriguing future match-ups between Vic and Blair (A&M), Johnnie Harris (Auburn), McCray Penson (Miss State), Mulkey (LSU), and of course, Staley (South Carolina). With the financial resources and the support of the AD, Vic must be pretty happy with his decision to become the head coach at Texas. With that support, the pressure is on Vic to improve the program, sell seats, compete for conference championships and be a consistent top 10 program. I'm confident that Vic understands the hill he has to climb and is embracing the challenge. We are fortunate to have him as our HC.

With the hiring of Beard as the Tx MBB HC, the national spotlight on both Texas basketball programs is going to burn bright over the next few years. It could be a fun time to be a fan of Tx Basketball.

 

Imagine the moody center environment when the likes of South Carolina, LSU, Kentucky, Mississippi state, aggies and Arkansas come to town!!! From a basketball standpoint and in the midst of trying to get more students and fans to attend games a move to the SEC in 2022 is perfect timing! Competition will be great every night.

 

I was on campus today and took in the Moody Center. I remember thinking "I ought to start a post about how far along construction is" until I saw this thread.

That open roof you see in the videos is entirely finished. The sides are still open to the elements but they are already installing glass walls on the northwest side that faces campus. Although basketball will not officially move here until the 2022 season, I predict they'll be using the Center as a practice facility by January 2022, it's that far along.

Does this site allow us to post pictures?

 

You have to upload the pics to the web first. Then you can share them on this site.

 

OK...where on "the web" would I upload the images? Does Hornfans maintain storage space? You can tell I'm not familiar with these things.

 

I use Imgur.com. Once you have them saved somewhere, then you just need the url to paste into the Image prompt found in the toolbar when you create a message (between the emoji and film icons).

 

Thanks for the social media lessons.

This view is looking southeast at what I think will be the main entrance to the Moody Center. Notice the large glass panes being installed.


Essentially the same "main entrance" area looking northeast.


As the videos above show, the Moody Center is built into a hillside. This is the view from the I-35 access road looking west. I imagine there will be another entrance on this east side entering at ground level, but it will open to the second or third level of the facility.

 

Nice! Thanks for sharing.

 

October 19, 2021 Update

Main entrance looking southeast. Southeast corner of the football stadium is directly behind me. Note the extent of glass walls installed. Overall, I estimate that 80% of the Moody Center is now enclosed on all sides.


Another southeast view. Note separate building to the right. I assume this is the new practice facility.


Looking south from the north end of Myers soccer stadium.


East facing view of the south side of Moody Center with the practice facility visible on the right. Note the completed glass walls.

 

I got the wife tickets to George next year for the grand opening. Safe to say she’s excited for him, but I’m legit excited to checkout the venue more than Strait himself. I love exploring sporting venues especially when they’re state of the art and in our backyard

 

So aggy named their basketball court after the winningest women’s basketball coach in school history. I can think of a Hall of Fame Coach with the same number of National championships and over 300 more wins at Texas that’s more than deserving of that honor in Austin where it seems fields, courts and buildings are more likely to be named after large money donors.
It would also send a message about supporting women’s sports at UT. There’s only two other courts named after WBB coaches in addition to Blair (Summit & Yow).

 

Fantastic point.

 

Moody Center sending the wrong message?

 

You lost me. Is this a play on transfer portal?

The style and artistic attribution is quite nice and exudes quality.

 

Yes, just a little fun. Believe me, I have 0 problems with the Moody. I worked as an usher and concert security at the FEC when I was at UT and it was starting to show its age back then (mid-to-late 90s). When I’ve made trips to Austin in recent years, I would feel a bit sad seeing (and smelling) how it seemed to be aging even faster than the calendar. A lot of great WBB history in that building but I’m counting the days to seeing the 1st Longhorns WBB game tip off in the new arena.

 

OK, here's my question: how convenient (or not) is it going to be to park and get to the arena?

 

Question as well:
I know in the fall 2021 there was a Moody Center Court design contest that took place, with the winning design announced at a home game . What ever came of that? What was the winning design? I've tried to find official info on this but have been unsuccessful.

I think in the men's basketball forum- someone mentioned the winning design selected did not stray away from current court appearance, and did not get a great response from crowd on hand that day.

Does anyone have a visual of what the winning court design was?

 

They’re going to reveal at “pick your seat night” whatever that means! There were no other details given.

 

https://parking.utexas.edu/sites/parking.utexas.edu/files/footballmap_21(V9).pdf
I'm guessing Manor Garage between the Soccer & Football stadium and right next door to Moody will be the primary parking garage used by the Longhorn Foundation for purchased parking by season ticket holders. I hope Lots 37-40 will also be used for that purpose. Trinity is probably still going to be used and perhaps Brazos and the East Campus garage (by the baseball stadium) too.

 

In 2015, before the season started, they held a seat picking event at Erwin. Based on your "points", you were invited to come at a specific time slot or later - for instance, 11:15. Then, you would be released to go down the steps and look for seats that weren't marked as reserved. They already knew how many season tickets you had purchased for the coming season. When you picked your seats, someone from the ticket office came by and put sheets of paper over the seat to indicate the seats were taken and then they wrote it down on a clipboard. I think this was the first and only time it was done where you literally had to walk down the rows and pick your seats. This was initiated by Steve Patterson. After that time, every upgrade event has been done online.

I suspect they will do a live-pick event again because Moody is new, the sight lines are new (no curve, sharper seating angles) and it's also to gin up excitement for season tickets at a new arena. I know I'll have to take half a day off from work when I'm notified of my time slot.

Added: KA was there to thank you for having season tickets and they gave you some freebies. I scored gray sweatpants with UT logo. Also, KA was very gracious and was willing to talk about basketball. I asked about Nekia Jones transferring out.

 

Two days prior to the ribbon cutting ceremony on April 19, I did my own self-guided tour today, Easter Sunday. It is certainly an incredible venue. The Erwin Center looks dowdy and plain in comparison.

One thing I'm concerned about. The "pit", the concrete, ground-floor area depicted in Blair's lower right image above, is absolutely huge. The pit is about 20 feet below the seating area above the hand rail. Instead of row numbers, this seating area is labelled rows A, B, C, etc. from the bottom to top.

I could not imagine a basketball court situated in the center of the pit that would be close enough to these seats to create an intimate and loud atmosphere. There would be too much dead space on the perimeter of the court. Then I noticed the 9 rows of moveable seats that telescope away from the sides of the pit. These pit seat rows are labelled AA, BB, CC, etc. from bottom to top, ending in row JJ. (Row II is not used, probably to avoid confusion because letter I's look like number 1's).

If you enlarge Blair's image, you will notice the stairways that seem to run parallel to the seat rows leading down to the floor of the pit. This is an illusion. These stairways will rotate 90° out to create a continuation of the isles above. If you look closely, you will notice a vertical wall which comprises the moveable seats in their stowed position. These seats will telescope out to create the lower 9 rows.

If you purchased season tickets in this section, you'll definitely want to choose seats in rows AA to JJ, closest to the court. Even so, I still think there will be a considerable amount of dead space from the lowest row, AA, and the sideline of the court.

There will be one or two rows of "Courtside Club" seating in front of Row AA, so these seats will take up some of this dead space. Courtside Club seats are similar to the "floor seats" at the Erwin Center. We'll see how this all works out.

 

First photo I've seen where some of the lowest rows are expanded fully:

 

Great pic, Moooo. That provides a good sense of how the extended seats eat up a lot of the dead space in the pit. It does appear that the pit seats are wider (more rows) on one side than the other, as also suggested in this image of the official pricing map.

The layout is definitely asymmetrical.
2022 Moody Seating Map WBB (PDF) - University of Texas Athletics



You'll have to explain sometime how you got your image to expand/contract. The secrets of the internet.