2025 Conference Tourney Time: Big Ten in Indy Adopts Racing Theme, Big XII Adopts Lots of Little X's and I's

The Big Ten (B1G) women's tournament is underway and, in tribute to the host city's Indianapolis 500 auto race, the court prominently features a checkered-flag design. Next week's men's tourney will feature the same court. It's a nice design, in my view, but I wonder why the checkered squares in the keys have such little contrast between black and gray.

The B1G had in the past featured a pinwheel of the member schools' pennants. According to the Sports Logos site, however, "The pinwheel logo featured the color schemes of all 14 Big Ten institutions, but with the additions of Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington this season, it simply needed to be expanded or replaced."

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The Big XII, meanwhile, has a court covered with rows and rows of consecutive small "XII" letters. Further, all the X's are positioned so that, viewed from the sidelines, the court appears to have criss-crossing diagonal lines. It's hard to describe, so just take a close-up look here (thanks to Matt Rachmiel). 

Fordham Celebrates 100th Anniversary of Rose Hill Gym with New Floor for This Season

Frequent contributor Matt Rachmiel notified me of a new floor design for Fordham, which he saw on television. The new floor can be seen here. In further researching the matter, I learned that Fordham's Rose Hill Gym was college basketball's oldest on-campus arena still in use and that today, January 16, 2025, was the 100th anniversary of the facility. The Rams' men's team hosted a game at Rose Hill Gym last night, losing to UMass in triple overtime. The Fordham women will mark the centennial with a game this coming Saturday.