International

Basketball at Ok State Gallagher Iba, Stillwater

olympics basketball at Gallagher-Iba Arena in Stillwater, Oklahoma

Since the 1924 Olympics, 56 Olympians from Oklahoma State University, located in Stillwater, Oklahoma, have won a total of 25 medals, 21 gold, three silver, and one bronze.

Oklahoma State University’s Henry Iba coached three Olympic Basketball teams to two gold medals, and the controversial 1972 loss for a silver medal. The Henry Iba Award was established in 1959 to recognize the best college basketball coach of the year by the United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA).


 

To recognize Oklahoma State University’s contribution to Basketball, the Tulsa Olympics would host basketball at the Gallagher-Iba Arena in Stillwater, Oklahoma, 72 miles west of Tulsa. The current seating capacity is 13,611.

The 2016 IOC Candidate city bid package listed a minimum seating capacity of 15,000 seats for basketball, and 288 athletes.

For the Atlanta 1996 Olympics, basketball was hosted at Morehouse College, with a seating capacity of 6,000 seats, and a high ticket sales of 5,014. The main site was the Georgia Dome with 34,500 seats. 1,068,032 tickets were sold.

The Gallagher-Iba Arena is currently 1,389 seats too small to meet the IOC minimum for the Olympics. The Tulsa Exploratory committee discussed with the IOC on obtaining a waiver. Oklahoma State University has 4,900 dorm beds available. The 288 basketball athletes, and their coaches, would be housed at the OSU campus.