The success of Sooner basketball teams in the early 1970s including star forward Alvan Adams, motivated the building of a larger, state-of-the-art, arena, the Lloyd Noble Center (LNC), which was built in 1973-75 at a cost of $6 Million.

The Sooners frequently sold out the arena during the Coach Billy Tubbs era, with All-American forward Wayman Tisdale leading the high-scoring team to several Big Eight Conference titles and NCAA Tournament appearances.

This led to the popular colloquialism around Norman that Lloyd Noble Center is "the house that Alvan built and Wayman filled."

In January 2006, the NBA and the New Orleans Hornets decided to move two games from the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge to Oklahoma City due to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent low attendance it caused.

OU and OU Athletics donors have made several investments in the arena over the years to update it, including a $17.1 M renovation in 2001,[4] the addition of the $7 M 18,000 sq ft Griffin Family Performance Center in 2018,[5] and extensive expansion and modernization of the men's and women's basketball locker rooms, offices and meeting facilities, updated video and sound systems, and renovated concourse amenities in 2023 ($9.5 M).