CHARLOTTESVILLE -- In the case of Virginia's new John Paul Jones Arena, what you see isn't all you get.

They don't give tours of the coaching offices, so fans will have to take Dave Leitao's word for his new digs.

"Palatial" is what he calls them.

Leitao didn't accept the Virginia men's job in the spring of 2005 because of the promise of a new arena, but he had taken a virtual tour on the Internet.

"I was awestruck," said Leitao on the day of his introduction. "I can only imagine the amenities and things [the building] will have that will make it, the day it opens, the most special college basketball arena in America."

There's one amenity he probably couldn't have imagined. He has a shower in his office.

"I'm almost humbled by it," Leitao said. "How many people have a shower in their office?"

Virginia women's coach Debbie Ryan said she might have been the last person to move out of University Hall, the Cavaliers' home from 1965-2006, but Leitao was gone the first week.

"The difference is, she [had] 30 years in University Hall, so it's a little harder emotionally to let go," Leitao said. "Conversely, I never even put up a picture. I knew I was there on borrowed time.

"When they said, 'Go ahead,' I had my bags packed."

Whether Virginia has the nicest college basketball arena in America is a topic that would draw some debate, but never has a college arena been built with such an outlay of private funds.

By the time all pledges are collected, the final price tag could come to $150 million. Virginia has raised $123 million toward the original projection of $129.8 million.

Few expenses were spared or corners cut on UVa's new arena, which was close to completion by the end of the 2005-06 basketball season but didn't not open until a series of concerts this summer and fall -- a lineup that included Kenny Chesney, James Taylor, Dave Matthews Band and Eric Clapton.

Both the men's and women's teams held preseason games in advance of Sunday's season openers. The UVa women face Old Dominion at 2 p.m. and the men play Arizona at 7.

"Just looking around here right now, it gives me chills," senior guard J.R. Reynolds said while standing courtside. "We've been waiting for the longest time. Now, it's finally here."

Reynolds committed to Virginia in fall 2001, when he was in the 11th grade at Roanoke Catholic School. He said he remembers no mention of a new arena in UVa's recruiting pitch.

"There was some talk about it later on," he said, "but I never thought I would be playing here."

Now, he'll be part of history, just like the members of UVa's 1965-66 team who were the subject of interviews upon the closing of University Hall.

Reynolds' backcourt partner, Sean Singletary, says he'll miss U-Hall, the site of 15 victories over Top 25 teams in the last six years alone.

"It was a comfortable court," said Singletary, who helped the Cavaliers past defending national champion North Carolina at home last year. "Fans were right on top of you and it could get real loud in there. It was a great home for basketball."

Singletary won't miss the practices that were rescheduled because the women needed to use the floor or the times he couldn't get in the building to practice his shooting. Entering the John Paul Jones Arena is as simple as using a fingerprint scanner at one of the doors.

Both teams have practice gyms, freeing them from worry if the arena floor is being used by an entertainment act.

"I've never seen anything like it," Reynolds said. "Where else are you going to find two practice courts? Some NBA arenas don't even have that. The type of stuff they put in here -- the scoreboard, the practice courts -- you're not going to find that nowhere. It's got to be the best college gym."

Truth be told, Leitao wouldn't trade his shower for the practice courts.

"It's quiet, it's private, it's got great acoustics," Leitao said. "It's like a laboratory or a professor with his classroom. You do it on your own terms and your own time. You have a lot more control of your surroundings."

As opposed to University Hall, which seated 8,392 for basketball and frequently sold out, Virginia's new arena seats 15,219.

"How do you go from 8,400 seats to filling up 15,000 seats?" Leitao said. "That's the inevitable question. I don't know if it's my responsibility. My responsibility is to win games. It's the theory of, 'If you build it, people will come.' "

Virginia has set goals of 8,000 season tickets for men's basketball and 2,000 for women's basketball. Both teams have scheduled attractively. The men will play non-conference games with Arizona, Stanford and Gonzaga, and the women will play Connecticut, Old Dominion and Temple.

"We've brought back several of the people who helped build this facility in different ways," Ryan said, naming UConn's Geno Auriemma, UAB's Audra Smith and Temple's Dawn Staley as three coaches with UVa ties who will bring their teams to Charlottesville this season.

"It's hugely important that we put 5,000 or 6,000 people in the facility every single game," added Ryan, whose Cavaliers averaged 2,956 fans last season.

Ryan once had an office underneath the steps at University Hall, so she feels like she's moved into a mansion.

"My office is so big, matter of fact, that we're trying to figure out a way to get the echo out of it," Ryan said. "It's huge. I just don't have enough things to put in there. I have a shower but no curtain right now. The shower head was about 20 feet off the ground."

Maybe they thought 7-foot-4 former UVa star Ralph Sampson "was going to be showering in there," Ryan added.

She said she can leave her office and walk downstairs to the practice facility without ever entering a hallway.

"It's not one of those spiral staircases," Leitao informed reporters. "We couldn't get the Bruce Wayne package?"

That's fine, but did Bruce Wayne have a shower in the Batcave?

"Hey, he's big time with that shower," said Boston College coach Al Skinner, one of Leitao's closest friends in the profession. "Some of us haven't arrived there yet."