Vanderbilt basketball

[VandyDelphia Mike]

Now that college basketball is getting in gear, we can turn our attention to some of the changes in college basketball uniforms.  Vanderbilt seems to change theirs just about every year.  For 03-04, it looks like they just took the Kansas redesign, and adjusted for Black & Gold.  Take a gander.

Any other schools using this Nike template for their uniforms?

[MrEleganza]

Wow, that's on the verge of being blatant.

[astonvillan]

That's common for the Nike-designed college basketball jerseys.  They'll use a common design template, then switch in school-specific logos/colors.  Take a look at UNLV and Oklahoma State's uniform design, for example.  Identical design, except for the lettering and colors.  

That being said, the new KU uniform is a step-down from previous versions.  The shorts look terrible with that swoop of color.

[MrEleganza]

Speaking of Kansas, did anyone notice they decided to remove the map of Kansas with a "K" in the middle from center court and replace it with a GIGANTIC Jayhawk Logo?  Ugh.  Cover your eyes.   As if they Jayhawk buckle-shoes weren't enough, now they have be 2 square feet in size.

[amare32]

Jayhawks suck.  Dookies suck.  Huskies suck.  Wildcats rule!  Bear Down, Arizona!

[sbirgells]

When current (at least for the time being) Vanderbilt hoops coach Kevin Stallings was sharpening his coaching teath at Illinois State, the Redbirds also sported Kansas-Style numerals and lettering. ISU was Stallings' first head job after being an assistant on Roy Williams' bench in the late '80s/early '90s. At the time, Stallings and the Redbirds used adidas equipment and apparel. Shortly prior to Stallings' departure and the schools' move over to Nike, the 'Birds began to sport Arizona-inspired duds and later graduated to a UConn style short.

While I was pretty plugged into the program during Stallings' tenure, it never occurred to me to dig into whether the Kansas-style uni's were  a direct diriviation of Stallings' association, or a happy coincidence. Maybe the Vanderbilt style sheds some light as to the coincidence.

I'll try to scan through some old media guides to provide some visual reference.

[VandyDelphia Mike]

The home whites are looking pretty nifty too.  I'll have to look out if they have a gold alternate.  I'm pretty sure they will, given the football team's options and previous Vandy basketball sets.

At 2-0, the basketball team has matched the football team's win total already!

Kevin Stallings I'll take any day over his predecessor, Jan van Breda Kolff.  Some liked to nickname him VBK, which I felt stood for "Very Bad Koach."  No matter, he bolted for Pepperdine, left St. Bonaventure in disgust, and now is an assistant for Tim Floyd with the Hornets.  Talk about a bum that has flown under the radar ...

[chiggy]

It appears Saint Louis University has the KU tmeplate as well

I think that SLU's number font fits better with the uniforms than KU's or Vandy'sSLU

SLU2

[astonvillan]

It appears Saint Louis University has the KU tmeplate as well

I think that SLU's number font fits better with the uniforms than KU's or Vandy'sSLU

SLU2

It's actually very lazy design work by Nike. They've done this for years, the obvious template work on college basketball uniforms. A few of the premier programs (i.e. Duke, Arizona) will get their own specially designed style, but the rest have the same cookie-cutter layout.

Adidas does the same thing, last year they put the team nicknames on the upper shoulder of the jersey.

[Discrim]

going a little ot, anyone watch duke regularly?  i was flipping through the new SI and saw an ad for the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.  in that ad was Dookie JJ Reddick...is it bad lighting or has duke put black on their regular unis?  i'm hoping it's the former, cus i wanted to puke.

[Fusebazell]

Yeah, I watch Duke regularly.  Big Cameron Crazy.  Which jersey are you talking about the white or black jersey.  They got rid of the blue jersey.

[jayhawksfan123]

vanderbilt does have a gold uniform

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/commodores/menhoop/MB031106/

not as good as the jayhawks uni's

[Discrim]

Yeah, I watch Duke regularly. Big Cameron Crazy. Which jersey are you talking about the white or black jersey. They got rid of the blue jersey.

the white.  please tell me i was seeing things...and why the hell did they dump that beautiful blue? :angry:

[astonvillan]

They dumped the blue?  They're the freaking BLUE DEVILS for chrissakes!

Lunacy.  Sheer lunacy.

[VandyDelphia Mike]

Yes, I'm resurrecting this thread from the dead.

Two other schools I spotted with the Kansas (I'd love to say it's the Vanderbilt, but we all know better) template are the Fighting Blue Hens of the University of Delaware, as well as the Southern Miss Golden Eagles.

[Saintsfan]

Too me it seems a bit unfair to call it lazy work by Nike, given the amount of college unis they must produce, and the amount of replicas they would sell. It wouldn't make any business sense for them to produce hundreds of different designs for each college they produce unis for.

Maybe I don't mind as much because in European soccer all the kit manufacturers use fairly similar templates all the time, for instance the collar of Real Madrid and AC Milan kits are similar (both adidas), Manchester United and Barcelona have very similar change kits (Uniteds might be there 'alternate' i'm not sure but its the white one, which apart from colors is almost identical to Barca's gold away kit.)

[Cianfrocco]

I don't mind it when multiple teams use a similar template, but what I don't like is when one team uses a unique design for a while, then another team later copies that style.  UConn had a unique design for a few years with the rectangles on the sides, then Nike thought it would be a good idea to give Iowa the exact same design.  By then I associated the design with UConn, so my Hawkeyes were using a borrowed identity!  Luckily, they changed again after a couple years.