Have you ever been to the Carrier Dome? Have you risen to your feet at the beginning of each half, with a Guns N' Roses tune blaring throughout the Orange-filled stadium, and clapped until the home team made a field goal? Have you helped set national attendance records on multiple occasions?
If you responded yes to any of those questions, then your handiwork has payed off.
If you said no to all of them, you are missing out on something special (Ed. Note: except the clapping...).
On Thursday, the home of the Syracuse Orange men's basketball team, the place many know as "the Loud House" was ranked as the second best arena in the entire country in a College Basketball Arena ranking done by StadiumJourney.com.
The Dome finished only behind Kentucky's Rupp Arena, who by the way, the Orange beat out by 4,000 people per game in average attendance this past season to become the highest of any school in the country for the first time since 2005.
Here is what the site had to say about the Orange:
"There's a reason that the Carrier Dome has been called the Loud House. Every game starts the same way. Welcome of the Jungle blares and every fan stands and claps until the first basket by Syracuse is scored. From there, you've got the normal ebb and flow of a basketball game, but so much louder than many other venues. The Dome has added brand new HD video boards filled with video highlights and promos while the in game entertainment does not try too hard to take away from the game itself."
The Carrier Dome is a unique arena for college basketball, holding on average 26,000+ people per game and setting on campus record with 35,446 people in the arena for a game against Duke in 2014. The success the program has had under head coach Jim Boeheim has filled seats for the past 38 years. While winning at least 20 games in a season in 36 of them, he has made coming back something fans want to do. The small football stadium converted into a huge basketball arena is always filled with orange and blue during the winter time.
The Carrier Dome was the highest ranked ACC arena in the rankings that the site said took four years to complete. The Dean E. Smith Center, the home of the North Carolina Tar Heels, was ranked ninth and stood as the only other ACC stadium in the top 10. The home court of current ACC and former Big East rival Pittsburgh, the Petersen Events Center, is ranked 14th and most notably the Duke Blue Devils' Cameron Indoor Stadium was ranked 31st.
The Carrier Dome is always a great place to catch a good game of basketball. While Central New York is where most fans call home, the team is also popular in other locations. Labeled as "New York's College Team", the Orange attract attention from all over the Empire State, helping fill their abnormally-large basketball arena. There is something special about the Syracuse basketball program, and it is special enough to get the attention of the whole country.