Custom basketball court takes over Lucas Oil Stadium with 35,000 expected for Sweet 16

INDIANAPOLIS — Hammers and forklifts will soon make way for pick and rolls and slam dunks inside of Lucas Oil Stadium.

Traditionally a football field, a hardwood has taken its place in the home of the Colts for the NCAA Men’s West Regional this weekend. It’ll be the only regional hosted inside a football stadium.

Houston, Purdue, Tennessee and Kentucky will compete for a chance at the Final Four.

But first, the court has to be assembled from 262 panels of first-grade northern hard maple from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. That is where Connor Sports, the official court partner of the NCAA, is based.

”The floor you’re seeing right here actually came from sustainably harvested wood about a year ago,” said Zach Ribery, the marketing director for Connor Sports.

Riberdy said the harvested lumber then heads to a manufacturing mill, followed by a team that puts the floor together in its raw form. From there, it heads to a facility in Ohio where all of the graphics are painted on and the stencils are matched with what the NCAA wants.

The court then made its way to Lucas Oil Stadium to be installed by a crew of about a dozen people. The court is 60′ x 120′ and weighs more than 42,000 pounds. It’ll take the crew less than four hours to assemble.

”We’re going to start on one side of the sideline and go all the way across,” said Riberdy.

Unlike earlier iterations of basketball courts inside of Lucas Oil Stadium, this court is being built on a raised platform. Eric Neuburger, the director of Lucas Oil Stadium, said this should improve the view for everyone inside the stadium.

”An architect could show you on paper, but the angles from raising the court just a little bit really do improve the sight lines for everybody in the building quite a bit,” Neuburger said.

Here’s what the finished product will look like. The courts for the regional matchups are mostly the same, but you will notice “INDIANAPOLIS” on one sideline with the logos for IU Indy and the Horizon League on opposite corners. The school and conference are the official hosts for the Midwest Regional.

Neuburger plans of quite a few people being inside of Lucas Oil Stadium, too.

”We’re expecting to push our capacity,” he said. “We think there’s going to be around 35,000 people here.”

That’s in no small part due to the huge alumni base of Purdue fans already in Indy, with the entire university just an hour north. On top of that, the University of Kentucky is about three hours from Indy and the University of Tennessee is about a five hour drive.

”We live for this,” Neuburger said. “I love this event. To have all of these people, this draw, here in this stadium.”

The 35,000 fans Friday night will be a stark contrast to the last time an NCAA Tournament game was played inside Lucas Oil Stadium. The venue hosted the Final Four in 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic made the final matchup of the season look more like a scrimmage. There were even cardboard cutouts in the stands to simulate real fans, something Neuburger remembers well.

“I still have mine in my office to remind me of that,” he said. “But I’m really glad to have the whole crew, the  whole building full of excited, rabid fans ready to cheer on their teams.”

Neuburger said Lucas Oil Stadium will be “game-ready” by 5 p.m. on Wednesday.

”We will have the building completely cleaned, we’ll have all the wires in the right places, we’ll have the stations set up for people to do all of their jobs,” he said.

As much as all of this work for Lucas Oil Stadium and Connor Sports is about the Sweet 16 and Elite 8, it’s also a dry run for the Final Four in Lucas Oil Stadium in 2026.

”Much of the same people are involved,” Neuburger said. “Many of the same components and putting on a great basketball event in a football stadium are involved, so it’s a perfect opportunity for us to get ready for a very big show next year in 2026.”

This weekend won’t just help prepare for inside of Lucas Oil Stadium in 2026, it’ll help prepare for outside, too. Patrick Talty, the president of the Indiana Sports Corp, said their team will be spread out in the city seeing what fans enjoy and what they don’t.

”We look and learn every single time we do an event,” Talty said. “We don’t ever stop thinking about how can we raise the bar again and again and again.”

For those counting down, Indy will be on the clock soon. The Final Four tips off on April 4, 2026, and the National Championship will be April 6.

This Friday, you can watch Tennessee play Kentucky at 7:39 p.m. inside Lucas Oil Stadium, followed by Purdue and Houston at 10:09 p.m. The winners of both matchups will go on to play each other on Sunday for a chance to go to the Final Four.