Maybe it's just me. Maybe I bought too heavily into the sales pitch. Maybe I just expected too much out of bricks, mortar and neon lights.

But when N.C. State began playing basketball in the RBC Center four years ago, I thought the building would have a dramatic impact on recruiting. A great building equals great recruiting. I had heard that so long from so many coaches that I figured there had to be something to it.

Now I don't know.

Oh sure, State's recruiting has improved some, but the results certainly aren't dramatically better than they were during the final few years at Reynolds Coliseum on campus.

The Wolfpack will begin this season with two legitimate All-ACC candidates, junior Julius Hodge and senior Marcus Melvin. But since 1995-96, only Hodge and Anthony Grundy have been been selected to the all-conference first team.

The blockbuster recruiting hauls that many fans expected on a regular basis just have not materialized. Pack coach Herb Sendek has come close to landing several top-ranked prospects, but most of the recruits signed during the past four or five years have been role players. Not many were courted by traditional top-10 programs.

While some State fans have been unimpressed by Sendek's recruiting skills, the RBC game atmosphere hasn't helped. Other than games against Duke and North Carolina, the excitement level is about average by ACC standards.

When asked for their impressions of the arena environment, ACC players tend to be polite.

Maryland's Jamar Smith: "It's very nice."

Florida State's Tim Pickett: "Yeah, that's a good place, but I think the places most of the players in the league really remember are Maryland and Duke."

Doesn't really knock your Nikes off, in other words. It's a first-class facility but not a must-see destination for top high school players.

Recruiting analysts Bob Gibbons and Dave Telep believe prospects are likelier to be impressed by programs and coaches than by buildings, particularly at the ACC level. Yet, both say the RBC is vital to the Pack's sales pitch.

"It all comes down to crowd size," Telep said. "An 8,000-seat building can be cavernous if there are only 4,000 people in it. For the RBC to really click, you need those 19,000 fans in there making some noise."

Said Gibbons: "Fans create the atmosphere, whether you're talking about a one-day-old building or a 100-year-old building. If the fans are there and into the game, it makes an impression on a prospect."

Wolfpack fans, players and potential recruits are only just beginning to identify the RBC with N.C. State basketball, Sendek noted.

"You don't spend over 50 years in one place and instantly have the same feeling for the new place," he said. "We have to build and develop a nostalgia. ... That's not going to happen in one year and probably won't even happen in 10 years.

"I'm guessing that when we first moved to Reynolds, people were saying, 'How could anything be better than Thompson Gym?' "

But it's harder to generate emotional electricity at the RBC Center than it was at Reynolds, where 10,000 people could blow the roof off. That many fans at the RBC just don't sound the same.

To be sure, the ratings of high school prospects can be unreliable. Freshman point guard Mike O'Donnell, who made no one's must-sign list in Largo, Fla., probably will be in the starting lineup when the Pack begins its season tonight.

Sendek's next class should be his best, the analysts say. Gibbons and Telep rate forward Cedric Simmons among the nation's best 30 or so players. Swingman Gavin Grant, from Hodge's former high school in New York, is top-50 material. Andrew Brackman makes most top-100 lists.

But to be honest, I expected more. I thought there would be a player of Hodge's reputation and skill in each Pack class after the new building opened.

That doesn't mean Sendek is a sorry recruiter -- he's average -- but it does mean you can't just build a $158 million gym and assume it will be a talent magnet.

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