📍 Nashville, Tennessee
🏀 Home of Vanderbilt Commodores basketball

An architectural anomaly, Vanderbilt’s Memorial Gymnasium has been a one-of-the-kind sports venue since its construction in 1952. Its peculiar design and the intense atmospheres it creates has made the home of Commodore basketball a true bucket list arena for followers of college hoops. The gym has seen a smattering of electric moments and has hosted several postseason tournaments over the more than seventy years that the building has been in use.

Memorial Gym was originally designed as a compromise between two factions: those who wanted to promote Vanderbilt athletics, and those who wanted to remove the school’s focus from college sports entirely. Consequently, the arena was built with a certain degree of versatility that resulted in its marked eccentricity. The most noticeable oddity is the playing floor, which was slightly elevated so it could double as a stage for shows, concerts and other university events. This caused the first few rows of seats to be set below the surface of the court, forcing the player benches to be placed in the end zones to prevent obstructed views. All four sides of the seating bowl are also perched straight back in the typical theater style, with the second tier on the two longer sides being overhung by the upper deck. Truly, there’s no other venue like it.

The arena only held around 6,500 at the time of its construction but, as Vanderbilt basketball grew, so too did Memorial Gym. By 1969 – just 17 years after it opened – Memorial had been expanded to a capacity of more than 15,000; it can presently contain around 14,300 fans.

Over the years, the venue has played host to the NCAA Tournament on four occasions and was twice the site of the SEC men’s basketball tournament. Two other Nashville schools, Belmont and Lipscomb, also held their “Battle of the Boulevard” rivalry series at Memorial Gym during the 1990s. Today, it serves simply as the home of Vandy’s basketball and women’s volleyball programs.

The storied past of Commodore athletics is on full display throughout Memorial Gym, including the in-depth exhibits in the Hall of History. Highlighted here are Vandy’s former SEC Players of the Year, men and women who have gone on the play in the NBA and WNBA, respectively, and notable basketball Olympians. Vanderbilt also holds the distinction of participating in the first college basketball game ever played, an 1893 contest against the Nashville YMCA.

The ‘Dores, while not quite as successful as some of their SEC peers, have been a continual contender in the postseason. They’ve won two SEC Championships – the most recent title came in 2012 – and appeared in 16 NCAA Tournaments, advancing to the Sweet Sixteen on six occasions. Vanderbilt’s deepest run was during the early years of the tourney, when they made it to the Elite Eight in 1965.

Through it all, Memorial Gym has been a palace for the Commodores during the regular season. Frequent renovations and upgrades to the interior have helped keep it fresh and comfortable for both the players and their dedicated fanbase. Although the SEC may have more dominant members on the hardwood, no other gym in the conference can rival the one here at Vanderbilt.