The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
1968 – present
The building: The program's home opened in December 1968 as the Athletic and Convocation Center — nine years before the varsity team existed — and was renamed the Edmund P. Joyce Center in 1987 for the university's former executive vice president. A renovation announced in October 2007, led by a gift of 12.5 million dollars from Philip J. Purcell III with further gifts from Vincent J. Naimoli and Mike Leep Sr., rebuilt the arena bowl; the university's releases put the project at 26.3 million dollars, and in the fall of 2009 the arena reopened as Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center. Capacity fell from 11,418 to 9,149 (a figure adjusted to 8,774 for the 2014 NCAA regional configuration the building hosted).
The home record: Through 2025–26 the Irish stand 566–114 at home — a winning percentage of .832 across the building's whole life as the program's floor. The first sellout in program history filled it for Connecticut on January 15, 2001; the record book carries Notre Dame at 51–11 all-time before home sellout crowds, with the sellout list running from that 2001 game through the NCAA tournament win over Michigan on March 23, 2025 — Connecticut, Tennessee, Texas, Baylor and Duke among the names on it. The book documents the building through its capacity, its home record and its sellouts rather than a season-by-season average attendance; no reliable average-attendance series was found for this section, and none is asserted.
The place in the game's growth: The program's crowds grew with the sport: a building that had never sold out for a women's game before 2001 became, in the McGraw era's second decade, a place where sellouts were routine and the December Connecticut game a fixture of the national calendar. Claims beyond the record — national attendance rankings and the like — are attributed where the sources make them and are not part of the apparatus here.
Sources:
- University record book — the building's capacity line (11,418 to 2008–09; 9,149 from 2009–10; 8,774 in the 2014 regional configuration); the all-time home record (566–114); the sellout list and the 51–11 sellout record.
- University releases — the 1987 Joyce renaming; the October 2007 renovation announcement and gifts; the 26.3-million-dollar project figure; the 2009 reopening as Purcell Pavilion.