I think you're way over-stating the impact of this arena. Do you honestly think a recruit walks into the Shoe and thinks to himself, "OMG, this arena is horrible." I think the Shoe is just fine to a player. Throw in the varsity village and Lindner center, weight room, rehab facilities, etc and we have a nice package to offer recruits. The Shoe isn't ugly. It's is still a fairly attractive arena. It certainly wouldn't drive away recruits. However, it does possibly drive away fans. But again, when our program was popular, we filled that horrible arena up and they made us buy football tickets to get our seats on top of it.
There's nothing terribly wrong with these recruits. They all sound like nice players. Do they sound like difference-makers/studs? Not really. They might be the missing piece to this puzzle that eventually gets us over the top. We'll see, but based solely on their ranking, they look about like all the other players we've been bringing in. Most on here seem to be very happy with that type of player and where the program is headed, so only time will tell.
