College hoops fans from around the world will be watching the Final Four this weekend in Houston.
Everyone wants to look good at the Big Dance, but unfortunately the four teams who've gotten this far were not selected on their fashion sense.
The four uniforms that will be on display at Reliant Stadium all, to one degree or another, represent What Not to Wear to one of the biggest moments in your school's history.
The four, from worst to first:
4. Kentucky Kentucky offers what must be the most hideous shade of blue available, some Crayola version of the color that makes everyone not a Wildcat fan cringe. For some reason that we're sure resonates deeply with Kentucky fans, there's a checkerboard thing going on in the waistband. Maybe Adolph Rupp really loved checkers while he was keeping blacks off his team.
As with every NCAA school, there are many different versions of the UK uniform out there (and available for purchase!!), but this one has a throwback typeface for the school name. It doesn't work.
Next!
3. UConn "Hey, our uniforms look a little boring. What should we do?"
"I know!! Randomly make one of the letters red. That'll make it stand out!!"
The result: UConn looks like it's really, really proud of its "U." Because, you know, no other schools in March Madness have a "U" in their name or anything.
The jersey numerals are far too thin, much to the dismay of any husky Huskies. And whatever the hell that logo is on the shorts, it ain't reading from the stands or the tube.
2. VCU Black: Default "cool" color choice.
Garish gold: Default "cool" color choice for people who like bright, shiny objects. Like disco balls.
Virginia Commonwealth University faces an insurmountable problem when it comes to designing a uniform -- there's no way to get that freakishly long name on one. On the other hand, un like, say, equally wordy schools like UCLA or UNLV, no one knows who the hell they are.
It's not like putting a "Virginia Is For Lovers" logo on the shorts would help (although the state does license it for use on panties -- complete with muffin top). So you're stuck with three letters that leave everyone guessing.
At least VCU uses a classy font for the name, so there's that. But oy, the yellow -- only a Lakers fan could love it.
1. Butler If this was a fashion magazine trying to get some eyeballs from Final Four fans, we'd say Butler "scores big" or, if we first asked the only basketball fan in the office for a relevant reference, Butler "makes a slam dunk" or something with their classic look. Clean, traditional font which takes advantage of the school's compact name, numeral size nicely proportional, not cluttered with a lot of random logos, it has appeal to old-school uni aficionados.
They may take things a touch too far with the double striping, which looks a bit high school to us, but by and large there aren't too many complaints about this gear.
Except for one thing. Well, two things, really.
First, Butler has some of the palest, whitest players alive. When the team wears its very dark road uniforms, the contrast is not flattering. Maybe if some of the dudes hit Darque tan it'd work better.
Secondly the shoulder parts -- we're sure there's a technical term for this that we're unaware of -- are way too thin. Obviously you can help yourself out by wearing a t-shirt underneath, but if you choose not to you can end up looking like this:
And no one wants to end up looking like that.
