Venue: Florida Gymnasium
Town: Florida, US

The Florida Gymnasium (commonly known as the "Florida Gym" and formerly nicknamed "Alligator Alley") is a historic building located on the campus of the University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville. It opened in 1949 as a 7,000-seat multi-purpose arena and served as the home court of the Florida Gators men's basketball team and other UF indoor sports programs for over thirty years, acquiring the nickname of "Alligator Alley" during that time. The Stephen C. O'Connell Center replaced the Florida Gym as the university's main indoor facility for intercollegiate sports upon its opening in 1980. The old gym was gradually repurposed for use by the University of Florida College of Health and Human Performance (HHP) in the following years, with a series of renovations and rebuilding projects converting most of the interior space into modern classrooms, laboratories, offices, and other educational facilities by the mid-1990s. The center of the gym still features a basketball court which is used for small assemblies and HHP classes and activities. The University of Florida's first indoor sports facility was the University Gymnasium, a narrow brick building that opened in 1919. The school's men's basketball team used the University Gym for practices and games, but since the building had been designed primarily for student recreation, there was little room for spectators. By the mid-1920s, the university had decided that it was not suitable for hosting intercollegiate sports programs and a larger gymnasium was needed. The university's funding declined with the onset of the Great Depression, making the construction of a new brick gymnasium cost prohibitive. Instead, a wooden facility officially dubbed "Building R" but commonly referred to as the "New Gym" was built directly adjacent to the University Gym as a temporary home for the school's indoor sports teams. However, an ongoing lack of funds throughout the 1930s resulted in Gator basketball teams using the New Gym for over 20 ye