The main difference was that Manley was an open facility that was used by many different teams / groups of students. If you wanted to go up to watch basketball practice any given night, you could just go--provided there was an unlocked door, you could let yourself in and go watch the team practice inside the gymnasium [which was quite spacious]. The basketball team was often practicing at the same time as the track team, so it was easy to get in, easy to find places to sit, and the doors were generally unlocked.
The Melo Center is a security restricted facility--and with good reason. I'm guessing that the decision to make it so has zero to do with fan experience considerations, and more to do with it not being a multi-purpose facility that requires unrestricted access like Manley. There's lots of state of the art equipment in there, lots of private weight rooms, etc. They don't just want anybody going in there to use the training facilities, or having access to valuable basketball program memoribilia, etc.
Personally speaking, as one who used to attend basketball practices frequently in the old days, it is kind of personally frustrating to not be able to go watch them when I'm back in town. My dad still lives in Syracuse, and used to often attend practices, as well. Now, access is significantly less easy to come by. But I don't think that it was a concerted effort on the basketball program's part to shut the public out in order to be secretive. In my mind, this is no different than having office buildings / workplaces with badged entry that keeps he public [who don't legitimately belong there] out. :noidea:
