The center of much of University of Alabama campus life since the facility opened in 1968, Coleman Coliseum is home to Alabama men's basketball.
Since 1968, Coleman Coliseum has served as the home court of the Crimson Tide basketball team and the vaunted structure has seen more than 500 Alabama wins under its distinctive arched roof.
Originally known as Memorial Coliseum, it remains one of college basketball's finest facilities and was decades ahead of its time when originally constructed at a cost of $4.2 million. The structure occupies two acres of land, with the roof reaching 90 feet above the playing surface and almost 100,000 square feet of space in the main seating bowl. At its inception, the Coliseum's capacity of 15,032 was easily the biggest in the Southeastern Conference and the fifth-largest in the nation.
In 1988, the arena was re-dedicated as Coleman Coliseum in honor of Jeff Coleman, a longtime Crimson Tide historian, business manager and alumni director, who served on the committee that oversaw the Coliseum's planning and construction.
Coleman Coliseum saw its greatest transformation prior to the 2005-06 season, when the entire facility was updated in grand fashion. Behind a bold modernized facade, the interior lobbies and concourses were expanded and upgraded along with offices, locker rooms and support facilities. In the main seating area, 15,316 new seats, all theater style and many of them padded, welcomed raucous crowds along with a new club area along the east side of the court. The improvements didn't stop there, as the consistently evolving facility continues to receive upgrades each season to keep it at the forefront of the nation's basketball facilities. The most recent updates included a new state-of-the-art high-definition scoreboard hanging over center court and additional courtside seating to bring the facility's capacity to 15,383.
The Coliseum also features an auxiliary training facility that houses two full-size courts at the team's disposal for practices and individual workouts. The facility also includes state-of-the-art video, training, weight and equipment rooms.
In addition to Alabama's 14 NBA first-round draft picks, the Coliseum has welcomed some of the finest players in college basketball history.