March 18, 2013

Court briefs

It's my favorite time of the year: March Madness.

I spent a few hours this weekend watching basketball - wish it was more hours, but the Hoosiers took it on the chin against Wisconsin again. In the process I noticed two really pretty things...

First there's the Big Ten's logo for their basketball tournament. It was on the center of the United Center court, and it's just gorgeous...

It's pretty enough just on its own, but it's even better when you look at where the design originates. Each of the color flags represents one of the Big Ten's eleven(yeah, I know - there are twelve and it's still the Big Ten) schools. I'll run through which I think is which in clock order...
  1. red & grey - Ohio State (or Wisconsin)
  2. red & white - Indiana
  3. purple & orange - Minnesota
  4. red & dark grey/black - Wisconsin (or Ohio State)
  5. purple & lighter purple - Northwestern
  6. dark blue & light blue - Penn State (though I've never seen them in the light blue)
  7. green & light green - Michigan State (again, haven't seen the light green)
  8. gold & black - Purdue
  9. yellow & blue - Michigan
  10. yellow & black - Iowa
  11. orange & blue - Illinois
Apparently Nebraska's addition a few years back didn't merit changing the logo. I'm curious as to whether Maryland & Rutgers will get any addition/change or not.

The other outstanding court design that I saw this weekend was the Mountain West's entire court design.


I'm not necessarily sold on the Reese's logos, but that's just for the money. I love, love, love the mountains along the bottom side of the court. 

In the whole-court design shown there, though, the true glory of the court doesn't quite shine through. The designs aren't painted on the court but are rather either inlaid or varnished in darker stains of wood as part of the court. Up close (at least up close on TV as I saw it), the design is just stunning. Check ESPN's photos of the UNLV-New Mexico conference championship game.



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