East Carolina Gets Rid of Distinctive Design; Stony Brook Introduces One

Via Uni-Watch and Matt Rachmiel, we have a couple of announced changes to college-basketball courts.

Back in 2011, East Carolina debuted what, to my knowledge, was a novel concept, namely the inclusion of logo imagery within a state-shape. Specifically, ECU's center-court design included the school's Pirate emblem, embedded within the state of North Carolina. Eight years later, that design is gone, replaced by a more conventional logo. The painted-in keys with fully open jump-ball circles by the free-throw lines are interesting, especially as no jump-balls are ever held there anymore. (The possession-arrow system has long been used instead to determine who gets the ball when opposing players are in joint possession of it.)

Meanwhile, Stony Brook is introducing a novel element. We've seen many schools depict the shape of their state as a shellac background. Stony Brook is depicting one region within a state, namely New York's Long Island, in the background.

With colleges going back into session in the coming weeks, I'm sure we'll see a lot more announcements.

Incarnate Word Court with San Antonio Landmarks

Via the usual sources, the University of the Incarnate Word has a new court featuring images of such San Antonio landmarks as the Alamo and the Tower of the Americas. The new floor can be seen in this time-lapse video of the renovation process.

North Texas Letting Fans Vote on New Floor

Via Uni-Watch (I beat Matt Rachmiel to the punch on this one 😉), the University of North Texas is letting fans vote on the school's new basketball court design. The options are shown here. The option that depicts the Texas state flag over the entire court, using different shades of green, is intriguing.

UPDATE (10/2/19): The winning design has been installed on the floor. It appears to combine elements of two of the designs in the contest: the "diving eagle" at center-court and the Texas flag in the keys.

New Court for Austin Peay

Via the usual sources, Austin Peay will have a new floor design this upcoming season. Compared to the previous court, which featured a lot of red, the new one will be much more conservative. You'll also notice that at midcourt of Austin Peay's floor, there is a Tennessee state-shape, with the "Governor" logo embedded within the state. The only other floor I can think of that includes a logo within a state-shape belongs to East Carolina (pirate imagery within the state of North Carolina).

New Court for Colorado Christian University

Via the usual sources, Colorado Christian University, an NCAA Division II school in Lakewood (outside Denver), has a new court design. We've seen courts with images of skylines and of mountains. This one gives us both!

New West Virginia Court (2019)

Via the usual sources, West Virginia will have a new floor design for next season. The new court will emphasize blue, as opposed to the yellow that dominated the previous court. There will also be a state outline at midcourt, defined through different shades of shellac (like Illinois, Nebraska, Ohio State, and Texas A&M [old and current]).

A video montage of all previous court designs at WVU Coliseum is available here.

New Robert Morris Court

With the U.S. college season now behind us, we're starting to seeing announcements of new court designs for next season.

First up is Robert Morris University in the Pittsburgh area. Frequent contributor Matt Rachmiel writes in (based on a link from Uni Watch) to share his characterization of RMU's new court:

"Very unusual that the sidelines are not the same color and that the color change is not at mid court."