Two days before this past Thanksgiving, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball team thumped Covenant College 100-39 before an announced Hamilton County Education Day crowd of 8,910.
That's not happening again any time soon.
With construction on the $34 million Wolford Family Athletic Center underway, UTC athletic director Mark Wharton said this week that Gate 1 of McKenzie Arena will be closed within the next 10 days and will remain closed for more than a year. Due to Tennessee State Fire Marshal's Office guidelines, that will result in no spectators being allowed in the arena's upper level during UTC's 2022-23 men's and women's basketball seasons or for any other events at the 10,668-seat facility that opened in 1982.
"That will restrict us, because we will only have Gate 2 and Gate 3," Wharton said. "Hopefully it will create a sense of getting your tickets early and that we can develop a sold-out capacity to where people will buy tickets in advance."
The Wolford Center's long-awaited groundbreaking took place late last month, and the facility will eventually provide a 37,500 square-foot structure adjacent to McKenzie Arena, which is being renovated as well in what Wharton labels a two-year process. It will result in expanded training space for the football and basketball programs, with Wharton adding that it will be the best of its kind in the Southern Conference.
Multiple employees of UTC's athletic department have already been displaced and are working in new locales throughout campus.
"Our academics are in the library, and our sports information people are in a different room," Wharton said. "Football locker rooms will go into their meeting room. We're doing different things to avoid that swath of more than 35,000 square feet.
"We've strategically put them throughout, and it's inconvenient, but we think we have a plan."
Wharton is hopeful those employees can enjoy their new surroundings closer to 18 months from now compared to two full years.
As for the arena itself, roughly 4,000 seats are in the lower bowl that includes the gold circle, leaving nearly 7,000 in the upper deck. Wharton said the fire marshal's office has set 4,000 as the maximum for a UTC basketball game, "but that includes concession stand workers and the teams and others, so we're really talking closer to 3,500 tickets that we can sell to patrons."
Most of UTC's home games fell below the 3,500 total this past season, though the men Mocs did continue their march to the NCAA tournament with a 70-57 topping of Samford before an announced 4,015 in their home finale.
"In the five years since I've been here, we have not sold season tickets in the upper deck," Wharton said. "No season ticket holders will be displaced."
Although some headaches have started with the commencing of construction, they are appreciated headaches given that plans for such a facility were first discussed in 2013.
"It's been exciting that some of these things have started to come to fruition," Wharton said. "We're excited about our future."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524. Follow him on Twitter @DavidSPaschall.