Over the years, Cole Field House has played a substantial role in college basketball history. Twice the Final Four has been held there, and twice it has been a site for the opening two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament. Cole is the only on-campus arena to play host to multiple Final Fours. Over the years, as the Atlantic Coast Conference has grown in stature as the preeminent college basketball conference in the country, Cole has seen its share of memorable games and storied players.

As the state's flagship university and an important part of the Baltimore-Washington area's sports landscape, it has also served as the site for the state boys' basketball tournament, and housed one of the biggest high school games played in these parts, when DeMatha from nearby Hyattsville played host to New York's Power Memorial and Lew Alcindor, now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

In focusing on Cole's past, the temptation is to overlook the present. Certainly, a lot of great games and great teams have performed there through the years. On any given weeknight or weekend afternoon during the cold of the winter, the Terrapins and their spirited fans get the place rocking, and there's no better place for college basketball.

And few arenas have proven quite so dangerous for opposing teams, that is. Since back in the early '70s, when Lefty Driesell got the "Amen" chorus going, top-ranked teams have found Cole Field House a particularly unfriendly place. Driesell served notice that Maryland would prove an ungracious host during his tenure with an upset of then-No. 1 South Carolina in his second season in College Park. In 1979, the Terps came from behind in the final seconds to knock off top-ranked Notre Dame on national television in another memorable upset. This list goes on and on. UCLA in 1982, Virginia in '83, and Carolina in '95 and again in 1998. All were No. 1 when they arrived at Cole, but were knocked off by the Terrapins and the homecourt advantage the building and the fans afforded them.

Though some of those victories might have been surprises, you could hardly call them flukes. The Terps have posted winning records in 38 of the 44 seasons they've played at Cole, and fans with season tickets have seen the Terps lose more than they've won in College Park only once since the 1969-70 season. Of course, most of those years, the Terps have done far better than just break even in College Park. Under head coach Gary Williams, a Maryland grad who played at Cole as an undergraduate in the late 1960s, the Terps have won at least 10 games at home nine times in his ten seasons. Thanks to the heroics of All-American center Joe Smith, the Terps went undefeated at home (16-0) during the 1994-95 season, the third time in history that had happened.

Overall, Maryland is 444-147 at Cole, including a nearly unbeaten 13-1 record at home last season, for a winning percentage above .751. Appropriately, the Terps opened their 1955-56 season with a victory over neighboring rival Virginia in the building's dedication game. A crowd of some 9,000 came out to see what kind of field house could be built with $3.3 million in those days. In the building's early years, capacity was only about 12,000, because there were no seats on the floor, below where the railings ring the court.

Nowadays, capacity is listed as 14,500, although that doesn't include the 96 courtside seats installed before the 1993-94 season. The largest recorded crowd (15,827) was on hand for the Maryland-North Carolina overtime thriller in 1972. But more than that may have witnessed the Virginia game in March of 1974, which marked the final home game for distinguished seniors Tom McMillen and Len Elmore. Every seat in the place was filled, and thousands more lined the concourse a couple of rows deep or simply sat in the aisles to witness the grand send-off. The fire marshal must have been on vacation. Or maybe he was there at the game.

In the building's four decades, though, the 1966 NCAA championship game, which pitted Kentucky against underdog Texas Western (now Texas El Paso), is probably the most famous. And, the most historically significant. In that game, the upstart Texas team, which featured an all-black starting five, knocked off all-white Kentucky, the New York Yankees of college basketball. The result forced the southern colleges to recruit and sign black players, lest they lose their competitive advantage, and did away with segregation in the sport.

Cole also hosted the 1970 Final Four, which saw UCLA crowned as champion for the fourth year in a row in what would turn out to be a run of seven straight national titles. Great high school and professional games have been played on the Maryland campus as well. Back in 1965, Morgan Wootten was gaining national attention for his winning program at DeMatha High School, just down Route 1 from campus. To be the best, Wootten always said, you had to beat the best, which is why he scheduled a game against Power Memorial of New York City, which featured Alcindor. After practicing in the week leading up to the game against a defender holding a tennis racquet to approximate Alcindor's wingspan, DeMatha stunned Power with a 46-43 victory. It was the only loss of the future Hall of Famer's high school career.

For a time, Cole served as the site for the Capital Classic high school all-star basketball game each spring, and the Capital Bullets, who later became the Washington Wizards, played their NBA games at Cole while waiting for the completion of the Capital Centre back in the early 1970s. In its time, Cole Field House has been much more than just another on-campus college basketball arena. If you don't believe that, just ask any Terrapin fan or player. But they'd probably all agree that it's the role the building has played best.

1955: Cole Field House dedicated at a cost of $3.3 million. Maryland defeats Virginia, 67-55, on Dec. 2 in the first game in the new facility.

1958: Cole is home to the Atlantic Coast Conference champions.

1966: Cole plays host to the NCAA Final Four. In the semifinals, Kentucky defeats Duke and Texas Western (now Texas-El Paso) defeats Utah. Texas-El Paso then defeats Kentucky in one of the most memorable championship games in history.

1970: Cole plays host to the NCAA Final Four for the second time. Jacksonville defeats St. Bonaventure and UCLA defeats New Mexico State in the semifinals. UCLA then defeats Jacksonville as Sidney Wicks outdueled Artis Gilmore. It was the fourth of UCLA's seven consecutive NCAA championships.

1971: Maryland defeats South Carolina, 31-30, in one of the great "slow-down" games in the history of Cole. Leading only 4-3 at halftime, Maryland needed a lay-up from Jim O'Brien to tie the game with five seconds to go in regulation and an 11-foot jumper from O'Brien to win the game with four seconds remaining in overtime.

1972: Cole is home to the National Invitation Tournament champions ­ the Maryland Terrapins.

1972: The Cole Field House attendance record of 15,287 was set as Maryland played host to North Carolina on Feb. 16. Maryland lost 79-77 in an overtime thriller. Maryland averaged 13,166 fans at each home game in 1972, the third highest total in school history.

1975: The Cole Field House home average attendance record of 13,427 is set. The Terps played 14 home games in front of 187, 971 Terp faithful.

1979: On Super Bowl Sunday, Larry Gibson sank a free throw with one second on the clock to boost the Terps past No. 1 Notre Dame, 67-66, on Jan. 27, 1979. Gibson scored 11 points that day while Ernest Graham scored 28 and Buck Williams grabbed 15 rebounds.

1979: Greg Manning sinks an eight-foot jumper with three seconds remaining in regulation to give Maryland a 70-68 victory over Duke on Jan. 16, 1979. The Blue Devils had entered the season ranked No. 1 in the country and were ranked among the top 10 on the day of the game.

1984: Cole is home to the Atlantic Coast Conference champion Maryland Terrapins.

1991: In the NCAA Eastern Regional first round, No. 15 Richmond defeats No. 2 Syracuse, 73-69, in one of the great upsets in NCAA Tournament history. It was only the second time in the history of the tournament that a No. 15 seed had defeated a No. 2 seed.

1992: Maryland defeats No. 10 North Carolina, 82-80, on a last-second tip-in by All-American Walt Williams on Feb. 13. Williams put the Terps up 81-80 with 1.3 seconds remaining to lead the Terps past the Tar Heels in Cole for only the second time since the 1982-83 season.

1994: Maryland sets an all-time average attendance record of 13,644 for 13 games.

1994: Maryland defeats Virginia on March 5, 70-68, in front of a sellout crowd. Duane Simpkins is perfect from the free-throw line (11-11) and Joe Smith scores 20 points and has 11 rebounds. The win clinches a fourth-place tie in the ACC regular season standings and virtually assures the Terps of an NCAA Tournament bid.

1995: Maryland defeats No. 1 North Carolina, 86-73, on Feb. 7, in front of a sellout crowd and a national television audience. Duane Simpkins and Johnny Rhodes score 21 points each and Joe Smith grabs 16 rebounds. The game features the Terps' Smith and North Carolina's Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace, all three of whom were selected in the first round of the 1995 NBA Draft.

1995: Maryland defeats American, 104-79, on Dec. 23, for the 400th victory in Cole Field House by a Maryland team.

1998: Maryland defeats No. 1 North Carolina, 89-83 in overtime, as Laron Profit scores 19 points overall and six points during the overtime period. It marks the second time in three years that the Terps defeated No. 1 North Carolina in Cole Field House.