State Outlines Revisited (2/19/10)

Reader Kevin Z. added a comment to the previous (Vanderbilt) thread, asking about universities that do (or did) include a state shape or outline as part of their center-court design:

You have mentioned state outlines on courts before on the blog. Do you know if there is a list anywhere or do you know many off the top of your head?

Here's what I have:
Current: UNC, Indiana, Mizzou, Texas, Texas A&M, Michigan State
Former: Tennessee, Kansas

The earlier entry on state shapes and outlines was posted roughly a year ago and is available here. It features a photo of Tennessee's old court design. Kevin was also kind enough to provide a link to Kansas's old court with the shape of the state (click here and then see Comments).

Missouri's court (shown below in a screenshot I made from YouTube) seems to barely qualify, as the relatively faint state outline is overwhelmed by the Tiger logo.


I don't know if Michigan State should be included, as its state shape is not used as the main center-circle design, but rather in a complementary fashion.

To the list of schools that formerly featured a state shape at midcourt, we can add Ohio State (St. John's Arena) and Oregon. Also, I think Kentucky's pre-Rupp Arena court may have featured a state shape, but I can't find any photos right now.

Vanderbilt's Extra Floor Space

Normally on this blog, we discuss court design elements such as logos and whether the keys or three-point areas are painted in. Vanderbilt's court is unique in a different way, namely the extra empty space surrounding the court.

FAU: Colorful, Though Not Overdone

Last night, ESPN telecast a Florida high school match-up between two hot-shot prospects. The game was held at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Arena, whose court I don't recall having seen before. Yes, the owl logo with outstretched wings is pretty big. I tend not to like courts I perceive as being too busy, designwise, but FAU stops short of crossing the line into excessive visual stimulation, in my view. And I do like the vivid colors. Here are some screen captures I took from ESPN360.com.

ACC's Uniformity of Wordmark in Key

On many college basketball courts, the design will feature the logo of the home team's conference in the key. Many conferences appear to leave it to the discretion of each team how to handle the league logo. In the Big 12, for example, Iowa State has the conference logo in each key (just inside the free-throw line), whereas Texas Tech has solid red keys with a "XII" logo below and to the right of the center-court Double-T.

As I started looking into this issue more closely, it seemed that the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) might be one in which all member teams have the conference logo (or in this case, wordmark) in their keys. After looking at several YouTube videos and doing screen captures, I can now document the big "ACC" letters in all the teams' keys...


Whether it's a league policy that all schools feature the "ACC" in the key or just each school deciding independently to do so, I don't know. Most hardcore hoops fans will be able to recognize all the schools. For the record, though, they are (clockwise from upper right) Boston College, Duke, Maryland, Virginia Tech, NC State, Wake Forest, Florida State, North Carolina, Miami, Virginia, Georgia Tech, and Clemson.

Among other conferences, the Big East seems to have a lot of uniformity in the use of the conference wordmark in the key. The Big East has 16 teams. I have not checked all of their courts, but I've checked several and they all have the conference wordmark (here, here, and here).

If you know of other conferences that have complete uniformity on logos in the key, please share this information in the Comments section. If you could verify your assertion first by going to YouTube or other sites and viewing visual evidence from each court, that would be helpful.

Another Huge Midcourt Design: South Carolina

In watching the telecast of South Carolina's upset of No. 1 Kentucky last night, I couldn't help but notice the huge logo and wordmarks at center-court of the Gamecocks' Colonial Life Arena (screen capture from ESPN360.com). South Carolina thus joins the large-logo pantheon, already inhabited by schools such as Syracuse, Kansas, and Cleveland State (see earlier entries on this blog).

Back in 2002, when Colonial Life Arena was being built, the school actually held a fan vote to determine the original court design. Today's court decorations, however, are far more outsized than the options available in 2002.

NBA Live (video game) Depictions of "Classic Courts"

While searching the web recently for pages on basketball court design, I came across the posting of video game images of roughly 25 "classic" courts used in NBA Live (from EA Sports). Included among the visual depictions are the Capital Centre (former home of the Washington Bullets, now Wizards), Hemisfair Arena (San Antonio), Kingdome and Seattle Center Coliseum (Seattle), Mecca (Milwaukee, with the famous "M" design), and Omni (Atlanta).

Lakers Courts of the 1960s and '70s (Sports Arena and Forum)

While visiting my parents in Los Angeles over the holidays, I found some Lakers' team pictures from my childhood and teenage years, in my old room. As shown below, the pictures pretty well capture the Laker courts of the 1960s and '70s (you can click on the photo montage to enlarge it). Having moved to L.A. from Minneapolis for the 1960-61 season, the Lakers played their first seven seasons in La-La Land at the Sports Arena. They then moved to the newly contructed Forum in 1967, which is where they stayed until 1999 (team history).


The Sports Arena floor can be seen in the 1966-67 picture (white home uniforms with blue trim). The latter two photos are from the 1970-71 and 1977-78 teams, who sported yellow home uniforms with purple trim at the Forum. By clicking on the year-specific links, you can see the roster for the respective season.

The close-ups of the Forum center circles are from two of the team pictures. The major change in the floor from the early to the late 1970s was the shift from black trim with the focal yellow to orange trim (neither black nor orange being a team color, by the way). The Forum court changed a little more during the 1980s and '90s, primarily the out-of-bounds area becoming purple (instead of the prior yellow), but the center-court area didn't appear to change much (see the ending of the final game at the Forum, in the 1999 playoffs, in this YouTube video).

Starting with the 1999-2000 season, the Lakers moved to the newly constructed Staples Center in downtown L.A., where their center-court decoration is simply the team logo (a basketball with "LAKERS" on it).