NCAA BASKETBALL
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The Pit in Memorial Gymnasium
18 Gym Dr
Orono, ME 04473
Opened: January 1, 1935
Memorial Gym, nicknamed "The Pit", is a 3,100 seat multi-purpose arena in Orono, Maine. It is home to the University of Maine Black Bears men's and women's basketball teams. Maine played 10 men's and women's basketball games during 2011-12 at Memorial Gym. The men's team has held a total of eight games at Memorial Gym since 2003-04. The Gym was home to Black Bears Basketball from 1935 to 1989, before moving some games to Bangor Auditorium.

A throwback to a long-gone era of college basketball, the Pit is designed in a classic arena, with the playing level approximately ten feet below the first row of bleacher stands. Often at capacity, the fans create a one-of-a-kind experience for visiting players and Black Bears alike that is tough to match. It's intimate, quirky, and at times inconvenient layout only add to the experience, as do the wooden chaired bleacher seats.

The Memorial Gym itself was built in 1933 as an addition to the earlier constructed indoor field house. Its name honors the more than 40 UMaine alumni and students who died in the Spanish-American War and World War I. Art Deco influences are found in the figures at the top of the south-facing façade, as well as in the decorative steel athletic figures above the three doors. The Gym and Field House have undergone numerous revisions, inside and out, with the most recent completed in 2014.

Renovations began to the arena in 2012. New scoreboards and shot clocks were installed, and seats were added after the 2012-13 season. The total cost of the renovations will be approximately $12.7 million, which will include some classrooms, an academic athletic center, a new training facility, new heating/HVAC ventilation, and new player locker rooms.

Both Black Bears teams hold every practice in The Pit, and both team's locker rooms are attached directly to the court as is the UMaine Athletics Training Room.

These days, the Pit hosts only a handful of Maine games a season, as the Black Bears call the Cross Insurance Center in downtown Bangor home for most of the year. Recent years have seen more and more games coming "home" to the Orono campus, including most recently the 2019-20 America East Women's Semifinal game and the entire 2020-21 COVID-impacted season.
Last 10 Games
Date Opponents Result
Mar 3, 2026UMass Lowell @ Maine 0 - 0
Feb 14, 2026NJIT @ Maine 0 - 0
Feb 12, 2026UMBC @ Maine 0 - 0
Feb 5, 2026Vermont @ Maine 0 - 0
Jan 24, 2026Binghamton @ Maine 0 - 0
Jan 22, 2026UAlbany @ Maine 0 - 0
Jan 19, 2026New Hampshire @ Maine 0 - 0
Jan 3, 2026Bryant @ Maine 0 - 0
Dec 30, 2025Maine-Fort Kent @ Maine 0 - 0
Dec 13, 2025Canisius @ Maine 0 - 0