Paging Our Ophthalmologist…
Posted by rtmsf on January 21st, 2009Ed. note: if you have some nominees that we missed, send them to us at rushthecourt@yahoo.com or leave it in the comments and we’ll try to get a photo up…
While we were sitting around watching a closer-than-it-should-have-been game between Memphis and Central Florida a couple of weekends ago, it occurred to us that we were spending more time staring at the appallingly hideous UCF Knight plastered onto the middle of the floor. And when the tv cameras took us to one end of the court, away from the menacing black knight ready to swallow up half of the players, my eyes were forced to contrast their two-tone floor where everything within the three point line was one color (light beige) and everything outside of it, another (beige). It was horrible. But our visual disaster is your gain, as it gave us an idea for a neat post comparing the ugliest home floors in America.
Central Florida – UCF Arena
The first thing we did was contact our loyal RTC correspondents, because who else will know about some abominable court hidden away in the Big Mountain South USA whatever Conference than our guys. Here are some of their entries:
Eastern Michigan – Convocation Center
It’s never a good thing when you start painting giant basketballs on the court and coloring in the three-point areas. Never. A. Good. Thing.
Moving to the Big 12, which has not one, but two nominees…
Texas A&M – Reed Arena
We’re uncertain what bugs us about this particular floor, other than the bizarre checkerboard parquet and the enormous outline of the state of Texas in the middle of it. Yeah, Texas is a big state, but come on… And the T-star situation isn’t helping – what is that thing?? We thought the A&M logo always had the letters “A” and “M” in it.
Baylor – Ferrell Center
This one isn’t all that bad except for one minor major annoyance – unless you’re sitting in the first five rows, who thought it was a good idea to paint the new 3-point line in yellow on a hardwood-colored floor? Especially when watching Baylor on tv, it’s nearly impossible to track what is a three and what isn’t a three because of that fact (sorry, we haven’t moved to HD in the RTC West Coast Compound yet).
Georgia Tech – Alexander Memorial Coliseum
This place has always bothered us – something about the deli mustard borders and the gigantic bee in the middle of the floor. Why not go with the black/gold setup like Vandy or Wake instead?
Colorado State – Moby Arena
Oh, Lord, no… this just can’t be allowed to continue. The photo isn’t great but you can clearly make out the outline of a ram’s horns all over this court.
Boise State – Taco Bell Arena
But the school that takes the cake, not once, but twice, has to be our blue-turfed friends in Boise. Both incarnations of their home floor in recent years (the top is their current one) have been downright offensive (the horse heads are bad enough, but we esp. hate the half-basketballs in the corners).
Princeton – Jadwin Gymnasium
Honorable mention goes to Princeton, not so much for its floor (which is solid) but for its multipurpose arena known as Jadwin Gymnasium. The space-age Epcot-style lighting and airport-hangar background there really scares us. For Chrissakes, they have temporary restraining walls on the sidelines so the ball doesn’t roll into the indoor track/field area. What a disaster.
Reader nominees:
Rutgers – The RAC
The floor at the RAC isn’t great – the gargantuan “R” in the middle seems a little Napoleanic, but otherwise we don’t think it’s all that bad. Others?
Vanderbilt – Memorial Gymnasium
It’s an awkward setup, but we don’t see a big problem with the floor itself…
Fordham – Rose Hill Gymnasium
What’s wrong with this floor? Nothing that we can discern…
Kansas – Allen Fieldhouse
Yeah, it’s got a cartoonish Jayhawk square in the middle, but it’s ok otherwise…
Kansas State – Bramlage Coliseum
Again, an oversized logo here, but otherwise, we don’t see too many problems with it (we assume those are shadows)…
A GREAT nomination from Michael – last year’s Women’s F4 Court. HIDEOUS.
Oklahoma State – Gallagher-Iba Arena
Yeah the Eddie Sutton ‘graph is fairly awful. Apparently below was an older photo, and the new OSU court looks like the one below it (we can’t find a decent picture of the new one).
Buffalo – HSBC Center
A great reader submission. Who wouldn’t want placid blue ponds on each end of their floor?
Rutgers has the worst floor.
What about Vanderbilt? Those enormous sidelines are so absurd.
Disagree on Vandy – the setup of the court relative to the building is definitely weird and awkward, but the color scheme of the floor doesn’t bother us too much. Thanks for the comment, though.
HOW COULD YOU LEAVE OFF THE UGLIEST AND BUSIEST FLOOR OF ALL TIME … ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK??? Yes, great team and a storied history; however the stupiest hardwood ever!!!!
For the record, back in the day the block T was the Texas A&M logo (as seen on the floor sans star). If you go back and look at some old school A&M caps such as those worn in the Bear Bryant days, the logo is just a block T.
A&M has a GREAT floor. No way it should be on this list!!!
Why isn’t K-state on here? It’s their Wildcat logo, but it takes up the entire freaking court and its purple to boot. Out of these, I vote CSU.
Fordham has the worst…court…ever…
@ mjq: so that explains the T, but what about the giant star? What’s that about?
I love Texas A&M’s floor. Not gross at all and this is coming from a Pac 10 fan! Diffferent color wood and as much as Ihate the state of texas…I think their floor is amazing.
Why not go with black and gold at Georgia Tech? Maybe because the colors are White and Gold you idiot.
I like most of these courts actually, other than Eastern Michigan, plus the yellow line at Baylor for the new three-point line is dumb… Rose Hill Gym is def. the worst facility at any decent level of college basketball… some of the venues down in conferences like the MAAC and NEC leave a lot to be desired too, mainly because of their much lower budgets… I guess maybe they get a pass?
yes! I was watching the TAMU game on Saturday and it took my 10 minutes to realize Tech wasn’t playing. (Sorry Aggies fans). That parquet is hideous
I kinda like Boise’s design, and I also like how they coordinate fans attire by section. I know they do it for football games, don’t know about bball.
I don’t know why A&M’s floor is on here. I actually find most of these floors okay. I feel like this article gets written 10 times a year, and the “writers” just copy and paste because their too lazy to do any actual research. Whatever. Don’t care. Just bored.
@ Richard: from the Ga Tech website:
OFFICIAL COLORS FOR ALL USES
The official colors of the Georgia Institute of Technology are white and gold. Navy blue and black are options in order to provide contrast.
That “gold” isn’t gold, anyway. It’s deli mustard. And black is allowable, we’ve seen it on their uniforms in the past. Thanks for the kind comment, though.
Oklahoma State didn’t make this list?
Florida’s court looks pretty good now, but their older one (before they bought the winning court from the National Championship) was pretty bad. It was a lot like Boise State with Orange and Blue. I haven’t found a picture yet, but I did find one of what is probably the ugliest Final Four court ever, Tampa Bay for last season’s Women’s Final Four. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ontheopenroad/2409009831/
I forgot about Oklahoma State. They have a gigantic relica of Eddie Sutton’s autograph. Not to mention the 2 tones free throw lane.
old OSU court
I had to vote “other” for Kansas. I greatly dislike the HUGE Jayhawk in the middle of the Kansas floor. I blame Kansas and Bill Self for starting the obnoxious, oversize logo trend. The huge logo thing has been a pet-peeve of mine for awhile.
The Oklahoma State pic you have is old. The Eddie Sutton wordmark isn’t nearly as large and hideous, and the cowboy isn’t colored in anymore. A big improvement this season.
Here’s a link to Gallagher-Iba Arena for this season’s OSU season. I actually think it’s one of the nicer courts in the country and definitely the nicest on this list.
The link is from the OSU student newspaper.
http://in.ocolly.okstate.edu/2008/07/16/gallagher-iba-arena-basketball-court-design-unveiled/
texas a&m’s floor is definitley the worst, what are they thinking??
If you had a decent picture of Moby “Arena”(Gym would be more appropriate), it would win hands down.
@ Paul – send us a link to a better pic, and we’ll put it up. We scoured around and couldn’t find one (maybe there’s a reason for that…).
Colorado State in a landslide.
Ew. EMU’s floor….colored in halves…..ew.
The worst court is the one used at HSBC Arena in Buffalo, they host the first two rounds of the tournament every couple of years. It’s awful – clashing ugly blues. This is the best link I have http://www.johnnyroadtrip.com/cities/buffalo/images/hsbcinside.jpg
I have several pics on my blog of our floor here in Auburn, it was built in the 60’s and still maintains that great 60’s “OLD” look. Although we are building a new arena, I would put our floor up for a vote any day.
Eastern Michigan’s floor is much more tasteful now. Your picture is from 3 or more years ago. Granted, the new floor is only seen by about 400 people each time the Hurons, er, Eagles take the court, so it is understandable why you don’t have an updated pic. Here is one, though….. http://michpics.wordpress.com/2008/03/08/michigan-march-madness-eastern-michigan-universitys-convocation-center/?referer=sphere_related_content/
how is this not on here from the hall of fame game kansas vs memphis to open the season???
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_V63wquXDG6U/SwrqrBtuAmI/AAAAAAAAAm4/Kmgh_c97CQk/s1600/vlcsnap-1202924.png
James…
Man, that is pretty hideous. That definitely would have made the list! But the answer to your question is that we originally posted that article about the ugliest floors over a year ago, back in January 2009. Therefore the floor you referenced wasn’t yet in existence. But I agree with you…it’s awful.
Thanks for the comment, though! Maybe we should do a short update on that piece.
John Stevens
RTC
I’m from A&M and just don’t get it..I love our court..but thanks for the response John!
Seriously … the first thing you mention about the A&M floor is the giant state of Texas but have no issues with the longhorn floor which is the state of Texas with a giant orange cow head on it? … Our T-Star (which is part of the A&M seal and not the which is the aTm) is a whole lot better looking than that thing in Austin.
The Texas A and M floor is exactly what we’d expect from Aggies in the best of the ignorant hillbilly tradition.
Being an alum of Georgia Tech, it always baffled me that they randomly changed their colors from the Navy and Gold to that Mustard gold and white? The Yellowjacket theme is all throughout their arena with the seating, bee-hive shape of the arena and then you have that floor? If you think that’s bad check out the Atlanta Hawks floor that has red, blue and brown sidelines with no yellow (original Hawks color) in site.