Charleston, WV Celebrates Coal

Via Matt Rachmiel and Uni Watch, the Charleston (West Virginia) Civic Center will feature a new court design when it hosts a West Virginia University game Tuesday. (WVU plays most of its home games on campus in Morgantown.) As can be seen in the linked article, the center-court logo combines three different themes: the state outline, a (very rough) orange basketball, and the sponsorship from an organization known as the Friends of Coal. After clicking on the link, you can click on the photo to enlarge it.

UCLA's Temporary L.A. Sports Arena Home

As many readers are undoubtedly aware, the UCLA men's team cannot use Pauley Pavilion this year, as the Bruins' home is undergoing major renovations. UCLA therefore is playing most of its home games this season across town in the L.A. Sports Arena, which is next door to the campus of the Bruins' archrival, USC. The Sports Arena, in fact, was the home of 'SC basketball for many years, until the Trojans moved into the on-campus Galen Center.

The first photo below is from UCLA's opening game the other night, in which the Bruins lost at the Sports Arena to Loyola Marymount. The center logo is very similar to the Pauley floor (second photo); the only difference appears to be the small interior circle, which is yellow at the Sports Arena and wood-colored at Pauley.

The big difference is in the keys, yellow at the Sports Arena and blue at Pauley. As this ESPN.com article explains, "The court was borrowed from the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks." (The Sparks play at the Staples Center and previously played at the Forum.)

The top photo is a screen capture from this YouTube video, whereas the bottom one is from this video.

Uni Watch's College Design Overview

Via Matt Rachmiel, Uni Watch blogger Paul Lukas has posted his annual college basketball preview. The preview focuses, of course, on changes to teams' uniforms. However, there's a brief section at the bottom of the write-up that summarizes new court designs. As Matt says, most of the new court designs listed by Lukas have already been discussed right here at this site, but not all of them.

As some of you may recall, back in August Northwestern put some possible court designs out for a fan vote. By following the links in Lukas's article, you can see which one Northwestern selected!