There is a lot of talk these days about naming the basketball floor for Nolan Richardson. Dudley Dawson pretty well makes the case in his column in the ADG today. I am in favor of such a move for the same reasons that Dudley espouses. While we are at it, I am also in favor of dramatically changing the court and how it looks as well. First, I would like to see the installation of what’s called a herringbone pattern of wood floor (for an example take a look at the Brooklyn Nets floor at the Barclay Center). The second change would be to bring back the slobbering Hog reminiscent of the first floor in Bud Walton and the old floor in Barnhill. The third change is to get rid of the “Nike” font on our uniforms and on both ends of the court. Have you ever noticed how the writing on our uniforms from Nike look similar to those of Tennessee? Both programs deserve a unique look instead of the “one size fits all” approach that Nike took in its design of our brand’s gear. The fourth change is to get rid of #Never Yield sideline writing. It seems as though all of our teams have had challenges living up to that meme. Save baseball, all of our programs have struggled with defense over the few years. Never Yield rings hollow.
So, let’s give Bud Walton a new exciting look starting with the basketball floor. Certainly we have or could raise $100,000 that it would take to get this done.
No it doesn’t. Not really. There is another Nike school that uses the same font, but it’s not in the SEC. It’s Michigan State.
Second, there is a big difference between NBA arenas and BWA. That difference is that NBA arenas all use portable floors, because many of them (including Brooklyn) are also used for NHL hockey and all of them are used for other things (San Antonio doesn’t have the NHL, but it does have to clear out of town for a couple of weeks each winter so that its arena can host a rodeo). BWA doesn’t have a portable floor; ours is permanent and ours is also built with shock-absorbing features that you can’t duplicate in a floor that is assembled like a jigsaw puzzle. I would suspect that the permanent floor would run quite a bit more than $100K for that reason, although i can’t find a price quote.
:lol: yes, we have yielded far too often for my tastes, too. Wasn’t that a Bielema thing? I don’t ever remember it being used like that before he got here. … glad Jen’s “throwing the A” never really caught on, either. :roll:
Your points are well taken. Just because the floor is permanent does not mean they could not pull up the boards and install a herringbone look. Yes it would be expensive. I saw a program regarding the manufacture of the Final Four floor purchased by the the NCAA. It encompasses how trees were harvested to to the forming of boards to design to painting to transport to the Final Four arena venue. The cost was $70,000. Even if it costs $200,000, it would be unique and might even help in recruiting.
As far as the “Nike font”, I still don’t like it on the uniforms or on the floor. I think we deserve better than a cookie cutter look.
I don’t like the Nike influence on uniforms or advertising in the Bud. I sure hate the uniforms that aren’t our school colors.
Naming the floor after Nolan would be a classy thing to do! He has earned it!
Nice, but can we do it in anthracite, then always wear anthracite so we’ll disappear on the court (you know, similar to Boise State football). Just kidding of course.
