Charleston, WV Celebrates Coal

Via Matt Rachmiel and Uni Watch, the Charleston (West Virginia) Civic Center will feature a new court design when it hosts a West Virginia University game Tuesday. (WVU plays most of its home games on campus in Morgantown.) As can be seen in the linked article, the center-court logo combines three different themes: the state outline, a (very rough) orange basketball, and the sponsorship from an organization known as the Friends of Coal. After clicking on the link, you can click on the photo to enlarge it.

UCLA's Temporary L.A. Sports Arena Home

As many readers are undoubtedly aware, the UCLA men's team cannot use Pauley Pavilion this year, as the Bruins' home is undergoing major renovations. UCLA therefore is playing most of its home games this season across town in the L.A. Sports Arena, which is next door to the campus of the Bruins' archrival, USC. The Sports Arena, in fact, was the home of 'SC basketball for many years, until the Trojans moved into the on-campus Galen Center.

The first photo below is from UCLA's opening game the other night, in which the Bruins lost at the Sports Arena to Loyola Marymount. The center logo is very similar to the Pauley floor (second photo); the only difference appears to be the small interior circle, which is yellow at the Sports Arena and wood-colored at Pauley.

The big difference is in the keys, yellow at the Sports Arena and blue at Pauley. As this ESPN.com article explains, "The court was borrowed from the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks." (The Sparks play at the Staples Center and previously played at the Forum.)

The top photo is a screen capture from this YouTube video, whereas the bottom one is from this video.

Uni Watch's College Design Overview

Via Matt Rachmiel, Uni Watch blogger Paul Lukas has posted his annual college basketball preview. The preview focuses, of course, on changes to teams' uniforms. However, there's a brief section at the bottom of the write-up that summarizes new court designs. As Matt says, most of the new court designs listed by Lukas have already been discussed right here at this site, but not all of them.

As some of you may recall, back in August Northwestern put some possible court designs out for a fan vote. By following the links in Lukas's article, you can see which one Northwestern selected!

NC State, Evansville, and Kansas State

Matt Rachmiel, my indefatigable informant on new court designs, has brought two new ones to my attention (the first two listed below), plus I discovered one on my own.

One is for the North Carolina State men at the RBC Center. The primary, if not the only, change from the old court appears to be that the areas between the three-point arc and the keys will now have a darker shade of shellac, to set them apart from the other parts of the court.

Second (via Uni Watch, as well as Matt) is the court at Evansville's new arena. The main change from the old court appears to be the removal of the solid orange color from the semi-circles above the free-throw lines. The photo from Uni Watch is from a non-optimal angle, but the Purple Aces' new court seems to look a lot like Kansas State's old one, which is discussed next...

The court change that I discovered is, indeed, Kansas State's. Compared to the old one, the new one:

• removes the "KANSAS STATE" wordmark from midcourt, 
• shrinks the stylized Wildcat logo at midcourt (yes!), 
• applies dark shellac to the three-point areas, 
• colors in the out-of-bounds area in purple, and 
• makes "K-STATE" the main wordmark for out of bounds (under each basket and above the center-court area, with "BRAMLAGE COLISEUM" shown in the out-of-bounds area below center-court).

New Illinois Court

With college basketball practice getting started in a couple of weeks, reports of new court designs are trickling out. Once again via Matt Rachmiel, we learn that the University of Illinois will feature a new look in Assembly Hall. The state outline around the big "I" is so subtle, it's visible only in close-up shots.

New Mississippi Court

Via Matt Rachmiel and Uni Watch, the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) will have a new court this coming season (top). The old design is shown below the new one.

Cal State Bakersfield's Blue Court

Cal State Bakersfield has unveiled a nearly all-blue court for this coming season  (via Chris Level). Notice also the California state shape at midcourt in a somewhat lighter shade of blue than the main court, behind the yellow Roadrunner logo.

Call me "old school," but I hope this doesn't become a trend. As I blogged about in the entry immediately below, Northwestern may be considering an all-purple-and-white court. Don't do it! Wood looks good. That's why people have hardwood floors, wood ceiling beams, wood dining-room tables and other furniture, etc., in their homes.

Knock on wood, so that schools don't completely cover the wood on their basketball floors.

UPDATE: Reader Tim Kearney has also (independently) e-mailed me a link to photos of the Bakersfield blue court from the school's athletic website.