Albuquerque Journal/IMAGO
The heart of the state of New Mexico sits a mile above sea level but 37 feet below the ground, in a bunker-like structure that comes to life for basketball games on winter nights.
The Pit is the center of the sports universe in New Mexico, a state without a major professional sports team that instead rallies like few others around its college basketball team, the Lobos. New Mexico is one of few places (think Kentucky, Indiana, Kansas) where college basketball is closer to a year-round obsession than a seasonal attraction. And The Pit has its place in the sport’s history, hosting the 1983 Final Four that featured the iconic championship-winning, buzzer-beating Lorenzo Charles dunk by for NC State that remains prominently featured in March Madness lore. It ranked 13th in Sports Illustrated’s favorite venues of the 20th century, in the same company as the likes of Augusta National and the Rose Bowl. As Richard Hoffer wrote then, “the noise created by fans, which has been measured at 125 decibels—the pain threshold for the human ear is 130—is a palpable force.”
