NBA: Warriors, Jazz Go Retro

I've only seen bits and pieces of a few NBA games in the opening days of the 2010-11 season, but there are at least two teams that have gone back to an earlier era in franchise history with their court designs and uniforms. These are the Golden State Warriors and Utah Jazz.

The Warriors, who sported a space-invader type of logo in recent years, have now gone back to a bridge motif (reminiscent of both the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges) as the major component of their emblem. The shift hearkens back to the team's days as the San Francisco Warriors before the move to Oakland in 1971 (see franchise history). This photo from the Warriors' home opener against Houston shows the new retro center-court design.

Meanwhile, the Jazz has brought back its music-note logo (hearkening back to the team's founding as the New Orleans Jazz; see franchise history), although the mountain logo of more recent years has not completely been abandoned. This team press conference featured artist renderings of both logos. I don't know exactly how the two logos will coexist. As seen in this highlights video from Utah's home opener against Phoenix, it was the music-note logo at center court.

Texas Tech's New Floor

Texas Tech University's United Spirit Arena has a new floor design. Here's a photo I took last night at the women's volleyball home opener. The new design has the surrounding out-of-bounds area in red, with no coloration of the keys (you may click on the images to enlarge them).

The new key features the Big XII logo, which is kind of odd because this summer's conference realignment has shrunk the conference to 10 schools. The company which repainted the floor, School Graphics, has a photo essay documenting the process.

Lastly, for comparison purposes, here's an old image I found on the web, of what the United Spirit Arena's court used to look like.

Both the old and new designs sport the university's traditional Double-T logo at center-court, although it appears to be somewhat bigger on the new floor. The old floor, of course, utilized both of the school's main colors, red (for the keys) and black (out of bounds). A more subtle shift is that, whereas both baselines used to say "TEXAS TECH," now only one says "TEXAS TECH" and the other says "RED RAIDERS."

I attended the first-ever basketball game in the United Spirit Arena, on November 19, 1999, when Bob Knight (who became Texas Tech's coach two seasons later) brought his Indiana squad to Lubbock to face the Red Raiders. I immediately took a liking to the black-outline/red-key floor. Whether the new floor will grow on me remains to be seen...

FIBA Men's World Championships in Turkey

The international basketball federation FIBA holds a world men's championships every four years, in even-numbered years in which there is no summer Olympics. This year's tournament is being hosted by the nation of Turkey, in various locations around the country. The tournament homepage can be accessed by clicking here. The court from one of the games is shown below. It looks fairly ordinary, except of course for the trapezoidal key used in international play and the wordmark in the middle of the free-throw circle.

Flooding of Iowa State's Hilton Coliseum

This item is not so much about court design, as about major damage to a court. Via the UniWatch blog, we have some links about the severe flooding of Hilton Coliseum at Iowa State University (you have to scroll pretty far down, once the UniWatch page comes up). Here's a video of the draining of water from the building. I also found this photo montage. Cyclones' women's volleyball has had its entire home schedule moved out of Hilton, but the facility is expected to reopen in time for the women's basketball home opener on November 4. I'm sure I speak for readers of this blog in wishing the people of Ames the speediest possible repairs to any damage suffered to their homes and other property, and in wishing that Hilton Coliseum returns as quickly as possible to being a rockin' basketball venue (screen capture below from this ISU athletics photo gallery).

Time-Lapse Video of Ohio U. Center-Court Being Repainted

Via a discussion board at BobcatAttack.com, an Ohio University fan site, here's a time-lapse video of the school's basketball arena (the Convocation Center or "Convo") getting a new center-court floor design. I'm surprised the new logo was painted directly over the old one, without the old one being removed more thoroughly. One participant on the aforementioned discussion board suggested it might be a cost-saving measure, as a comprehensive refinishing of the court presumably would have been more expensive.

Old Milwaukee Arena (aka The MECCA and U.S. Cellular)

One of the things I like to do when the NCAA and NBA are in their off-seasons is "go retro" and examine historical court designs. Before the Milwaukee Bucks moved in 1988 to their current home, the Bradley Center, they played in what is now known as U.S. Cellular Arena and was previously known as Milwaukee Arena and the MECCA. Toward the end of the Bucks' time at the MECCA, the bulding sported an unusual floor design -- dreamed up by pop artist Robert Indiana -- that used different shades of shellac to create a giant "M" on either side of the half-court line (see image below, which I took from here). In case you've wondered what happened to the double-M floor, the answer is here.

Even before Robert Indiana's contribution, however, the Milwaukee Arena/MECCA featured another unusual floor element, a dotted (not dashed) line semi-circle in the keys (above right; from the video “Oscar Robertson best skilled player ever,” available on YouTube).

NCAA Women's Final Four Court

It's become a given in recent years that the court designs for the NCAA women's Final Four are more colorful and elaborate than the men's design. This year's women's court in San Antonio, which we're now seeing on ESPN during the first semifinal, between Stanford and Oklahoma, certainly does have a lot of color, but I don't know how attractive it is. Here is an online photo gallery from Baylor [link updated], which shows the center-circle area and part of the three-point arcs and free-throw lines. The center logo's color scheme matches that of the Texas state flag, including the white star on blue field. What I don't understand, though, are what look like huge red blobs covering the entire area inside the three-point arcs.