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Lucas Oil Stadium -- which traditionally serves as the home of the NFL's Indianapolis Colts -- will welcome college basketball and about 35,000 fans this weekend with matchups from the Midwest Region taking place. It will be the only of the four regional bouts taking place inside a football stadium, which will offer different sight lines for players and fans.
In Newark, games will be played at the Prudential Center (which once hosted the Nets and also is home for Seton Hall). In Atlanta, games will be at State Farm Arena, home of the Hawks. In San Francisco, they'll play at the Chase Center, the new-ish home of the Golden State Warriors. Attendance capacities in those places will be sub-20,000.
Gainbridge Fieldhouse, home of the NBA's Indiana Pacers, would traditionally serve as the home for a Regional. However, Gainbridge Fieldhouse will be hosting the IHSAA high school state finals this coming weekend.
On Friday, No. 1 seed Houston will take on No. 4 seed Purdue, while No. 2 seed Tennessee will face off against No. 3 seed Kentucky. The winner plays Sunday with a Final Four berth on the line.
According to Fox 59, the court was put together from 262 panels of first-grade northern hard maple retrieved from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Connor Sports, the official court partner of the NCAA, is based in Michigan.
The harvested lumber is delivered to a manufacturing mill, then a team puts the floor together. After that, the floor goes to a facility in Ohio where the graphics are painted onto it.
A crew of an estimated dozen people installs the court, which is 60x120 and weighs over 42,000 pounds. It takes the crew less than four hours to assemble the court.
The court was built on a raised platform because games will be played at a football stadium. There likely will be a handful of alumni from the likes of Kentucky, Purdue and Tennessee considering all three schools are within five hours of Indianapolis.
A total of 35,000 fans will be on hand Friday when the four teams take the floor at Lucas Oil Stadium. It'll mark the first time Lucas Oil Stadium has had an NCAA Tournament game since the stadium hosted the Final Four back in 2021. However, a limited number of fans were in attendance as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lucas Oil Stadium will also host the Final Four in 2026, so this weekend is a dress rehearsal.
