📍 Gainesville, Florida
🏀 Home of Florida Gators basketball

As the years wear on and the SEC continues to prove it’s just as much a basketball conference as a football one, few programs have found themselves more on the leading edge than have the Florida Gators. This modern-day powerhouse has consistently thrashed its way to the top of the circuit and into the national spotlight, dismantling opponents each year from the cavernous confines of their swampy chomping grounds in Gainesville.

Known officially as Exactech Arena at Stephen C. O’Connell Center, the Gators’ home has earned several worthy nicknames over the years. The structure’s air-supported fabric roof has inspired the most popular moniker, The O’Dome, though it was also dubbed the “House of Horrors” by ESPN.

The O’Dome may have originally opened in 1980, but thanks to the rebuilding of the entire interior in 2016, it functions almost like a brand-new venue. The main atrium, despite feeling a bit like a hotel conference center, features a lofty ceiling and exposed brick on some of the interior walls. Panels also line the concourse, detailing the history of the building and the events held on site.

While the O’Connell Center is nice enough architecturally, it remains a bit sterile and lacks the usual character that tends to make college basketball venues special. Gameday presentation is about average – a little disappointing for a stellar program like the Gators – though the on-court projections are a neat touch. There are a few standout food options at the arena too, such as “swamp chips”, beer battered onion rings and quesadillas.

For now, Florida’s gymnastic and volleyball banners still far outnumber the basketball ones hanging in the arena’s rafters. But the men’s program is turning that tide one season at a time. The Gators were back-to-back national champs in ’06 and ’07; now, nearly twenty years later, the squad’s 2025 victory put them once again on top.

Both UF’s regional fanbase and the school’s student section, known as the Rowdy Reptiles, have seen the orange and blue through all their highs and lows. Now, Gators fans can sit back and enjoy the team’s sustained success as they establish themselves as one of the sports’ new blue bloods.