ECU Combines State Outline with Logo Imagery

Following up on my immediately previous posting about UNC-Chapel Hill's state outline at the Dean Smith Center (below), East Carolina University (which is in North Carolina) has found a unique way to incorporate the same shape, but suffuse it with imagery of the school's Pirate logo. Via a cool website called Arena Fanatic, which reviews the experience of attending games at various sports venues around the nation and is worth checking out, we have the following look at ECU's center-court logo, which I've zoomed-in on...

North Carolina Comes Full Circle

This may seem like a relatively small change, but I think it makes a big difference visually. In Chapel Hill, the University of North Carolina's Dean Smith Center (or "Dean Dome") has consistently featured a filled-in light-blue outline of the state and the school's NC-overlay logo. Prior to the current season, the NC was surrounded by a traditional center-court jump-ball circle, also filled in with light-blue (top of following display). This season, however, the NC falls directly on the shape of the state, without the larger light-blue center-circle (bottom of display).

I like the old (top) design as it makes the NC look more, pardon the pun, "centered." (The top image comes from this YouTube video, whereas the bottom one is from the ESPN3.com archived video of this year's Wake Forest-UNC men's game.)

UPDATE: The fully filled-in, light-blue jump-ball circle is back for the 2011-12 season.

If You Like Fire-Breathing Dragons...

...then the courts at Drexel University (Philadelphia) and the University of Alabama Birmingham are for you. Drexel's teams are actually called the Dragons...

...whereas UAB's teams are known as the Blazers, but feature the mascot "Blaze the Dragon."

These screen captures were made from the following YouTube videos: Drexel, UAB.

Why Must Schools Make Their Abbreviation Letters So HUGE?

I've made several postings over the years about the outsized logos many schools have displayed on their center-court areas. Lately, I've noticed a couple of floors whose center-court decorations consist only of the school's abbreviation letters.

Having grown up a UCLA fan and seen those letters presented in a small and compact arrangement, I am frankly amazed at how gigantic Loyola Marymount University (LMU) and Auburn University (AU) have made their respective center-court abbreviations.

As shown first below, even with only three letters, the LMU design nearly stretches from the three-point arc on one side of the court to that on the other. (I made a screen capture from the official LMU athletic website of video highlights from the men's game against San Francisco.)

Meanwhile, at the new Auburn Arena, the AU overlay takes up quite a large proportion of the area between the two three-point arcs (photo from here).

Maybe it's just me, but I find such large letter logos distracting and jarring to my sense of proportion. In addition to the aforementioned UCLA court at Pauley Pavilion, I think Texas Christian University (TCU) has good sizing for its abbreviation at Daniel Meyer Coliseum.