What are some differences to expect in Coleman this year?

Sure, today marks 38 days until Alabama will kick things off against Virginia Tech in Atlanta, but anyone that knows me knows I like me some basketball.

Today, as season ticket holders are starting to get their order forms, the forms were accompanied by the new seating chart for Coleman Coliseum, which looked like this

It is not the clearest image, as it was scanned in on BamaOnLine.com, but I will explain.

The Media has now been moved from the floor and will now take up the bottom third of Section O. Their seats have now been replaced with season ticket holders, so there will now be fans on the floor on the sidelines.

Also, the students will now have seats under both baskets. The students will keep their regular student seating under the visitors basket, but will gain 125 seats under the basket by the Alabama bench.

Under the visitors basket, the students will remain on the retractable seating, but students will be on risers under the home basket. If the seating under the home basket does not fill up with students, it will be opened up in some capacity to the public.

The band will also be moving and in their spot by the students will be more seating implemented. In my talk with a member of Events Management, he did not specify where the band will be moving.

It may seem like the students are gaining a lot of seating here, but in fact they will also be losing some seating in some areas that have long belonged to them, such as the area in the middle of Section S, which will now go to season ticket holders.

Overall, the changes benefit the students. There will now be 175 floor seats available to students, so non-conference games should allow every student at these games to have a spot on the floor, depending on the level of excitement for the team this year.

This also brings some atmosphere into Coleman, which has a huge abyss of air in it. With students on the floor, this should get some more students involved and passionate about basketball as they will now be making a larger impact.

Those are just the seating changes for what will be one of many improvements for the basketball arena, including a new center-court scoreboard.