San Jose State Tones Down Its Court

I noticed while watching tonight's Utah State at San Jose State game on ESPN2 that the Spartans have toned down their court. The Spartan helmet design remains at center court. However, the huge shields that were in place since 2013 are now gone. With the removal of the shields, the helmet is now more vertically centered than before. Also, the keys are now painted solid blue, whereas they previously were yellow.

College Courts Catching My Eye Early in 2019-20

Two court designs have caught my eye at this early point in the 2019-20 college basketball season.

• It had seemed to me that huge center-court logos were losing popularity compared to a few years ago. No one told that to Louisville, however. A large "Dunking Cardinal" image now adorns the court at the KFC Yum! Center.
• Coastal Carolina's court, which actually was introduced before the 2018-19 season, presents a nice combination of a shellac-based shape of the state of South Carolina, with the school's Chanticleer logo overlaid.

Will Memphis Tigers' New Court Earn Its Stripes?

Via the usual sources, the University of Memphis has a new court for the Tigers, shown here. The design is one of the gaudiest you'll see. The idea of tiger stripes -- let alone ones colored in light and royal blue -- to fill in the keys is pretty inventive. However, keeping the areas inside the three-point arcs a conventional wood color and painting the entire area between the arcs light-blue doesn't work for me.

Washington State Court with Some Novel Features

Via the usual sources, Washington State University will have a new court this season. Two features are of note:

• When we've seen horizontal-strip geographic motifs (skylines, mountain ranges, etc.) on courts in the past, they have appeared along the lower sideline. WSU's, which depicts landmarks throughout the state ("the Cascade Mountains, the Seattle skyline, the Ed Hendler Cable Bridge that spans the Columbia River, the Riverfront Park Pavilion and Clock Tower and the Bryan Clock Tower"), will appear midway up the court, from one key to the other.
• With the men's three-point line being moved further out this season and the women's staying put, most schools will probably paint two different lines, in different colors. WSU's approach will be a little different. The area inside the men's (more distant) three-point arc will be filled in with a single shade of shellac, surrounded by a white line. There will also be a white line denoting the women's arc, giving the men's arc the appearance of being extra-thick. The closest analogy I can think of is from a former UNC-Charlotte court.

UMass Amherst... and UMass Boston

Via the usual sources, the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) will be switching from a parquet floor to one featuring a uniformly light shade of wood with a large shape of the state in a darker shade of shellac. A carryover element from the old court to the new will be a large U, with MASS superimposed, at center-court.

Quite by accident, while I was searching for images of the UMass court, I came upon the unusual court design for the UMass-Boston branch campus. As seen in the video at this link, the bulk of the court is solid blue (except for inside the three-point arcs), with a giant Beacon logo in the middle of the court.

Loyola Marymount the Latest to Go With Outdoorsy Theme

Via the usual sources, Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in Los Angeles has added depictions of palm trees to its court. LMU's trees are a bit more subdued, however, than Cal State Fullerton's.

Another feature of the new LMU court is how, on one side of the center line, the out-of-bounds area and on-the-court trim are maroon, whereas on the other side, they are light-blue.

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.