Bowling Green Blends State-Shape with Logo

Via Uni-Watch, here's a time-lapse video of  the court being sanded down and repainted to a new design at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. I think it's pretty sharp how they embed the school logo into a shellac-based state-shape at mid-court.

Colorado State Shrinks Ram Horns

From the usual sources, Colorado State University will have a new court for next season. As shown in this time-lapse video of the resurfacing of the floor, the rams horns that used to dominate the court will now be smaller and lighter.

Inverting the Tiger Stripes

Back in January, we looked at four schools whose basketball courts included tiger stripes in their keys. Now, as I've just learned from frequent contributor Matt Rachmiel, there is a court that does the opposite, namely featuring tiger stripes throughout the entire court except for the keys. This new court appears at Edward Waters University, a Division II institution in Florida. Here's a picture.

2022 NCAA Women's Final Four Floor is Pretty Ordinary in Minneapolis

Unlike the highly uniform court designs the men's NCAA tournament has been using for several years, the women's Final Four courts have been notable for their creativity in symbolizing the host city. Last year's Alamo-themed floor in San Antonio, 2009's St. Louis Arch court, and 2007's huge guitar in Cleveland (home of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame) are some notable examples. 

This year's court in Minneapolis, on display tonight in the two national semifinals, underwhelms, in my view. As I've learned tonight, Minnesota is the northernmost US state, invoking images of compasses and the North Star. Hence, there is a center-court logo incorporating these themes (as explained here) and bright star logos under each basket (in the restricted zone), but nothing else to symbolize Minneapolis or the Twin Cities.

Pac 12 Tournament Court May Be Most Confusing I've Ever Seen

The Pac 12 women's championship game is currently underway in Las Vegas. All I can say about the court design (which may or may not also be used for the conference's upcoming men's tourney) is that, unless you are intimately familiar with the Pac 12's logo, most of the court will leave you wondering "What is that?" Here's a screenshot from Twitter...

In the center-circle, you'll notice the rounded-triangular Pac 12 logo, which features an arched "PAC" across the top and a "12" below it. What would happen if you blew up the logo by about 100 times (so big the logo could not be contained by the court) and converted the blue and white to different shades of shellac? That's what you see to the left and right of the center-circle. 

Perhaps the Pac 12's inspiration was the SEC, with its shellac-based logo (below). I personally don't find the SEC's court all that attractive, but at least the full SEC logo is self-contained within the court and thus comprehensible to viewers. 

2022 NBA All-Star Game Court

Here is the court for this year's NBA All-Star Game in Cleveland (via Twitter)...

Tiger Stripes in the Key: Who Does it Best?

Frequent contributor Matt Rachmiel e-mailed the other day about the Idaho State Bengals featuring Tiger stripes in the keys of their court. I went and looked at Idaho State's design and it reminded me of Memphis's (albeit with different colors). I did some Google searching and found two additional courts with Tiger stripes in the paint: the University of the Pacific and Bandon High School in Oregon. After taking screen captures, we have the following array (clockwise from upper-right: Memphis, Bandon, Pacific, and Idaho State). You may click on the images to enlarge them.

Which do you like best? Take the poll below. I know of other teams called the Tigers (Mizzou, Auburn, LSU, Princeton, Towson), but they don't have stripes in the key. If you know of any other team with Tiger stripes in the key, please let me know in the Comments.