NCAA Basketball


Year:		Conferences:		Teams:

Seasons	Conferences	Arenas	All Tournaments	NCAA Tournament	Admin

Cousens Gymnasium

161 College Ave

Medord, MA 02155

Opened: February 9, 1932

Cousens Gymnasium is a multi-purpose arena in Medford Massachusetts on the campus of Tufts University. was constructed in 1931 to replace Goddard Gymnasium, which was inadequate for the increasing demands of a growing student population. It was named for then-president John Albert Cousens, and the building's architects were Andrews, Jones, Biscoe, and Whitmore.

At the height of the Great Depression, Cousens Gymnasium opened to great fanfare on February 9, 1932, when the men's basketball team gritted out a 28-24 overtime victory against Brown University in front of 1,600 spectators. "Certainly this plant is second to none in New England," the Tufts Weekly crowed about the new physical education building.

With its high, vaulted roof and bench seating, the gymnasium, named for Tufts' sixth president, John Albert Cousens, was indeed New England's premier physical education and athletics facility until Harvard built a new fieldhouse in the 1960s.Then, 77 years later, during the throes of a Great Recession in 2009, the venerable gymnasium underwent a major renovation, work that gave the men's and women's basketball teams true home court advantage during NCAA tournament play. In 1995, two years after the New England Small College Athletic Conference lifted a ban on NCAA tournament play by its teams, the Tufts men's basketball team earned its first-ever NCAA berth. The celebration was short-lived, however, because an NCAA mandate issued that same year required tournament games to be played on courts that were 94 feet long. Built to high school specifications in the 1930s, Cousens fell short. The Jumbos had to play their big game at a neutral site, in this case Bentley College, and lost to Salem State, 86-80.

Last 10 Games
Date	Opponents	Result

Mar 7, 1951	Tufts @ Providence #	74 - 77
Mar 6, 1951	@ Providence #	50 - 54
	# - 1950-51 N.A.I.B. Region Tournament