COLUMBUS, Ohio – For Ohio State fans over the age of approximately 40-years-old, St. John Arena has a real familiar feel to it.

Sure, it does not have the luxury amenities of its bigger and younger brother down the street at Value City Arena. But for one game a year, it is home to the Ohio State Men's Basketball team.

Monday night's game against Kent State was not an official sellout, there were plenty of good seats available in the upper tank and even in the lower bowl around the baselines, but that does not matter. The 13,000-plus seat structure has always had a reputation for being one of the loudest venues in the Big Ten, even with fewer people in the building.

Everyone is right on top of the action in a small place with a low ceiling, opposed to VCA, which seems to have more a concert-first feel to it and everything else is just secondary. What's old is new these days and the current players love going back to the old barn and having the opportunity to put on the 'retro' threads that were in fashion only 30 years ago.

While we have no official measurement of the noise in decibels there is little doubt in the minds of anyone who was part of the crowd on Monday night that when the Buckeyes needed the fans the most, the fans answered, and St. John Arena answered the call once again.

After Kent State erased a 17-point deficit to the Buckeyes and had a chance to take the first lead of the game since the 1:02 mark of the first half the building really sprung to life as the roof came off of the old barn the way that it did for Jerry Lucas, Clark Kellogg, John Havlicek and Kelvin Ransey.

Despite not being full to the rafters it felt like the building was ready to explode.

"This place was loud. St. John Arena was fantastic," Ohio State head coach Chris Holtmann said. "I do think that the energy of this place made a difference in a stretch where we needed it. I don't know what the numbers were tonight, but I am glad that we played a game like this, that we thought was going to be competitive because our fans were unbelievable."

Basketball moved to the corner of Lane Avenue and Olentangy River Road in the 1998 season and left behind a building that still has banners of yesteryear displayed prominently from the rafters. The 1960 National Championship team called this building home. As did the Jimmy Jackson-led teams of the early 90s, and everything in-between.

Sure, there were some lean times toward the end of the life of St. John Arena. Ohio State at the time certainly did not need a new building when ground was broken on the new place in 1996, but that did not stop the progress toward moving the famous tenant out of the building and into a new shiny facility that was supposed to be a shining star on the horizon.

Ohio State and a potential NHL team in Central Ohio were in a race to see who could get their building up first and lure all of that non-sporting event traffic their way. Ohio State won, as it usually does.

At a cost of 110-million-dollars (more like around 180-million-dollars today) the building debuted in November of 1998.

Fans who were against the change begged and pleaded that the money, even just a portion of it, go into rehabbing the historic old venue and bring it up to some semblance of modern day luxury to compete against the likes of Assembly Hall in Bloomington (Ind.) or Mackey Arena in West Lafayette (Ind.).

While it may have been difficult to engineer luxury boxes in a building that opened in 1956, it certainly would have been worth a look.

It is understandable that a major university needs to keep up with the times and stay competitive in the facility arms race, and the Ohio State athletic machine needs money to operate as the largest in the nation. But couldn't that have been accomplished with a refurbished St. John Arena?

How much money is the school really bringing in with Katy Perry, Kenny Chesney and Kings of Leon?

And at what cost?

But progress beats out nostalgia in almost all instances. And did so in this case.

PSLs beat out atmosphere. The bottom line beat out basketball. Suites beat out sentimental memories.

Value City Arena is a great building for most events. Basketball is not one of them.

Big money won out and because of that we all lost.