I totally agree that Ahearn was awesome, but only some of the awe came from the building -- most of it came from the action on the floor and the action in the stands.
During the past 20 or so "lean" years, the atmosphere has changed. Granted, Bramlage doesn't have the primal basketball-drenched aura of Ahearn, but Ahearn only became that way because of the games played there--the teams that took the floor and the fans that made it one of the toughest places to play in college basketball. <--That can happen at Bramlage now too.
Hell, if our record in Ahearn was as poor as our record has been the last 20 years, we would have be looking back at Ahearn with spite.