That was the problem with the FEC, students only in the rafters. But, you could always be guaranteed to get a cheap ticket.
A coach can't do much about the venue they play in, just be the mouthpiece for the athletic department (who actually drive the whole strategy).
If I remember events correctly, I thought I remember DeLoss first talking about the need for a new b-ball venue & CDC driving the execution. But who knows how ling it took UT to secure the funding. They did officially announce the intention for construction in 2018, broke ground in 2019, but obviously project had been in the planning phases years before that. It did a year into Beardy's tenure. So he was just fortunate to inherit it at that time. But I would credit CDC for the hype and experience machine (because fuck that prior guy....), as he also drove similar revamps of Football & baseball.
Hell, I remember even Barnes criticizing the FEC venue back in the day, but there was nothing he could do about the seating arrangement, as the Foundation had all court level seats locked in. Therefore all resident seating assignments would all need to be nuked with the new arena.