Tiger Stripes at Towson

Frequent correspondent Matt Rachmiel informs me that the Tigers of Towson University (Maryland) will be introducing what the school calls a "watermark" Tiger stripe design on its basketball court. This Washington Post article provides photos of the floor design. Further details are also available, of course, at Towson's athletic website. The new floor apparently will be used both in the school's current arena beginning next season and in a new arena where play will begin in 2013-14.

76ers Have a Classy Court

I haven't gotten excited about too many NBA courts in recent years. Now that it's playoff time, I wanted to comment on NBA floors, and I'll start by saying the Philadelphia 76ers have a nice court. This is the second season, I believe, since the Sixers went back to the traditional red, white, and blue motif of their glory days, following several years when the team's colors were black, blue, and gold. I definitely welcome the return back to red, white, and blue as the team colors, plus the logo with the circle of stars above the 7 in 76ers. In an era when several NBA teams sport two-tone courts (for inside and outside the three-point arc) and other looks that are becoming cliched, the Sixers' court is basic, yet colorful and engaging. Good views of the Sixers' court at Philly's Wells Fargo Center are available here and here.

Women's Final Four in Indy Narrows the Key

The women's Final Four in Indianapolis has keys that are a throwback to when the lane was much narrower (a thin maroon lane within a larger open key). At midcourt is a more modern, yet still conventional, Final Four logo.

UPDATE: In response to an inquiry in the Comments, I went ahead and drew the following picture in PowerPoint as an approximation, rather than trying to make a screen capture.

Here's a link to a Yahoo Sports article on the court (thanks to Brian in the Comments).

Here's a link to a video showing the old narrow key, circa 1953 (Wilt Chamberlain was born in 1936 and is described in the video as being 17).

Countdown to Houston's Final Four Men's Court

As the first game of the Final Four in Houston's Reliant Stadium approaches, here's an article/photo essay on the conversion of the stadium surface to a basketball court. Here's a video of the same. The out-of-bounds areas are definitely blue, in the NCAA's boring format. I'm assuming Houston's space-based Final Four logo (almost like the baseball Astros' old design) will be at center court, with the standard open key and blue top-of-the-key semicircle. Here's an article on the manufacturing of the men's and women's Final Four floors.

UPDATE: The court looks pretty much as I expected, except the dominant color appears to be a darker shade of blue than in the earlier rounds. In a few areas of the out-of-bounds area, the blue fades to a lighter shade to form a backdrop for white lettering ("FINAL FOUR" in the out-of-bounds areas behind the baskets, "NCAA" by the check-in point at the scorer's table, and the phrase "AND THEN THERE WERE FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE" on the opposite side of the court from the scorer's table).

NCAA, NIT, etc., Open Thread

Another year of the same, boring, standardized NCAA court.

We'll have to look to the NIT and other tournaments (CBI, CIT, NAIA) for more exciting courts...

Click here for a history of Wichita State's Wheat Shocker mascot.

2011 Conference Tournaments

Frequent contributor Matt Rachmiel notified me of a unique design element on the court for the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) men's and women's tournaments currently going on in Las Vegas. Along the baseline are depicted all of the member schools' logos, as seen on the left-hand side of the screen-capture photo (from this YouTube video of the women's game between New Mexico State and Hawai'i).

Also, Matt and I each independently noticed the huge logo at center-court for the Pac-10 tournament (which appears both at the Staples Center for the men's event and USC's Galen Center for the women's). A picture of the court is available here (scroll most of the way down when the new page opens).

Feel free to use the Comments section to discuss any conference-tournament floor designs, whether you love or hate any particular court.

Richmond's Spider Web

In the time I've been maintaining this blog, I've somehow neglected to showcase the University of Richmond Spiders' web logo at midcourt. The wavy lines meant to represent the web's silky thread are thin and perhaps hard to see, but you can click on the images to enlarge them. These screenshots were taken from this YouTube video.