Robert Hillier was early in his career as an architect and his latest project -- designing a new arena for the state’s public university -- was the biggest he had ever tackled.  He wanted to make a lasting impression, and so he proposed an imposing structure loaded with bells and whistles that would be the envy of the college basketball world.  The folks at Rutgers loved it, too. 

Then came their response. 

“Uh, yeah.  We can’t afford that.” 

Hillier went back to the drawing board with a mandate that would dictate every major decision in his design and, quite unintentionally, create one of the most substantial home-court advantages in the sport.  The architect, now 82, not only had to build a home for the Scarlet Knights complete with offices for athletic department officials and extra room for several other sports. 

“It had to be as inexpensive as possible,” he said with a laugh last week. 

And, so, the Rutgers Athletic Center was born.  The Scarlet Knights owe their NCAA Tournament chances to their dominance inside the 43-year-old barn, a nation’s best 16-0 home record that includes a wild come-from-behind win over Northwestern last weekend. 

But so many of its quirks -- its overwhelming RAC-ness -- feel like a mystery.  Why is it shaped like a trapezoid?  Why does it get so loud?  Why does it look so uninspiring on the outside?  I have attended basketball games in far too many arenas and gymnasiums to count, and nothing quite compares to the one Rutgers calls home. 

That’s why I tracked down Hillier.  He is one of the most accomplished architects in the nation whose Princeton-based firm has designed more than 3,500 buildings over the years, but the details of the old basketball arena in Piscataway have stuck with him. 

Hillier explains it like this: Had Rutgers not capped his budget at roughly $8 million, everything about the place would be different.  This is one of those rare instances where operating on the cheap turned out to help the Scarlet Knights. 

First, a bit of history.  When Rutgers reached the Final Four in 1976, it was still playing its home games in the badly outdated College Avenue Gymnasium.  Rutgers officials had abandoned plans in the early ’70s to build a 13,000-seat arena and civic center in downtown New Brunswick and, instead, settled on an athletic complex on the university’s Livingston campus that was to include a hockey rink, an aquatic center and an arena that could be expanded to 11,000 seats. 

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Money was a problem.  So, as usual, were campus politics. “ We are not and I hope we will never be a basketball or a football factory," Dr. Henry Winkler, Rutgers’ vice president for academic affairs, said in a 1976 Star-Ledger story as he explained why Rutgers needed the improved facilities after falling decades behind the competition. 

Sound familiar? 

Hillier went to work.  He drew up plans for a building that would be supported by four massive columns and, he said, “the cheapest industrial bar joists that we could buy that would extend 100 feet.”  The building needed to be a certain height to accommodate the basketball court and the 8,000 seats, but could be much shorter in the areas reserved for the offices, locker rooms and other spaces. 

Hence ... a trapezoid! 

“That’s why we ended up building it the way we did," Hillier said. “ It was a way to save money both on construction costs and heating bills.” 

The design, he admitted, was more similar to an industrial warehouse that you’d find alongside the Turnpike than a sports arena. “ If Rutgers wanted to move, it would make a great distribution center for Amazon,” the architect said.  But, given the gymnasium it was replacing, the fans and players from that era were tickled when it opened in the fall of 1977. 

Rutgers wasn’t the only team to call it home for its first four seasons.  The NBA’s Nets, awaiting the construction of their own cavernous arena in the Meadowlands, moved in as well.  The place didn’t fill up often during its early days, but when it did, people quickly discovered its defining characteristic. 

The place was loud. 

That, Hillier said, is also a byproduct of the strange design. “ To get the seats into a small footprint, we made the stands extremely steep,” he said. “ That certainly helps to make the noise bigger.”  So does the materials used in the construction. 

The RAC didn’t even have air conditioning until 2016 -- and, no, that’s not a typo.  Sound proofing?  Acoustics?  Forget it.  The steel used around the building amplifies the crowd noise and makes 8,000 screaming fans sound like twice that many. 

Rutgers athletic director Patrick Hobbs, who spearheaded the construction of the much-needed practice facility that now sits next to the arena, eventually plans to upgrade the RAC.  He wants to replace office space with a lounge for the high rollers and turn the current media center into a bar, although it is unclear where these improvement rank on the ever-changing list of priorities. 

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None of the changes would impact the RAC-ness of the place, and given how the Scarlet Knights have transformed into one of the nation’s best home teams, that’s wise. 

Hillier hasn’t seen a game there in years, but still wonders what the place might have looked like with a bigger budget in the ’70s.  He also thinks that a full facelift, one that keeps the foundation but modernizes everything else wouldn’t be as involved, or expensive, as Rutgers officials might think. 

But that would mean the end of the unique shape, and with new materials, the changes could lower the volume in the building.  No one around Rutgers basketball wants to risk that.  For once, cutting corners in Piscataway worked out for the best. 

Long live the trapezoid. 

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Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com.  Follow him on Twitter @StevePoliti.  Find NJ.com on Facebook.