Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 03/07/2026 02:04:00

They built the roof first, then dug the arena out from under it. The Pit - officially University Arena - at 1111 University Boulevard SE in Albuquerque opened on December 1, 1966 with New Mexico beating Abilene Christian, and earned its name honestly: the playing floor sits 37 feet below street level. The construction was the innovation - architect Joe Boehning had contractors erect the 338-by-300-foot Behlen stressed-skin roof at grade, then excavate 55,000 cubic yards of earth beneath it - eliminating interior columns, letting the foundation rest on earth, and bringing the whole building in at a preposterous 1.4 million dollars. The geometry made the legend: steep sides, seats tight to the floor and an enclosed bowl that concentrates sound into one of the most hostile noise environments in college basketball - the University of New Mexico Lobos' fortress, with a .817 home winning percentage across nearly sixty years. The building's biggest night belongs to history: the 1983 NCAA championship, when North Carolina State's buzzer-beating upset of Houston produced Jim Valvano's frantic search for someone to hug - replayed every March since. A 1975 expansion hung a cantilevered deck above the original bowl, pushing capacity past 18,000; the 60-million-dollar 2010 renovation modernized the arena to its current 15,411 for basketball and up to 13,480 for concerts, with 40 suites and club seating. Beyond Lobo basketball the Pit hosts concerts, graduations, state high school championships and touring shows, and has appeared repeatedly on lists of college basketball's best venues. The subterranean design won Boehning international recognition and has never been meaningfully copied - college sport's great one-off, still roaring from a hole in the Albuquerque mesa. The arena's statistical legend is attendance: for decades the Lobos ranked among the national leaders despite Albuquerque's market size, with sellout streaks that made a Pit ticket the state's hardest get - and the 1983 title game's 17,327 remains the building's benchmark night.