Illini Basketball Uniforms
theNewGuy
- Dallas, TX
Just be thankful Fanatics isn't making your jerseys.... the NHL took a huge L last week
I measure Nikes prioritization by how many SKU’s they offer for retail through their website… your list lines up pretty well with my thoughts.People keep saying we are “not a priority” for Nike … who is, and why do we believe this? Besides the Blue Bloods, we’d be as profitable for them as anyone else; even when we were bad, we were one of the 15 most profitable basketball programs in the nation. Of the “Blue Bloods” and programs I grew up thinking of as “Blue Blood” or close, these are the brands:
Kentucky: Nike
North Carolina: Jordan
Kansas: Adidas
UCLA: Jordan
Duke: Nike
Indiana: Adidas
Louisville: Adidas
UConn: Nike
Villanova: Nike
The following are some examples of programs I’d consider just above/in/just below our tier historically or due to other factors like having (at least) as big of a fan base as ours, followed by some traditional football powers and/or football programs with massive fan bases:
Michigan State: Nike
Ohio State: Nike
Syracuse: Nike
Arizona: Nike
Michigan: Jordan
Arkansas: Nike
Texas: Nike
Florida: Jordan
Georgetown: Jordan
Purdue: Nike
Maryland: Under Armour
Wisconsin: Adidas
The only schools I’d say Nike is 100% prioritizing over us - and literally everyone - for quality basketball uniforms are Oregon (duh), Kentucky, Duke, Ohio State and Texas. Even UConn and Villanova are probably just lumped into the same big bucket as us.I admit I don’t know, but do we really think traditional football powerhouses that use Nike but keep their football jerseys literally the same each year (Alabama, Georgia, PSU, USC mostly) are cutting to the front of the line for Nike’s creativity regarding basketball uniforms? I don’t.
redwingillini11
White and Sixth
- North Aurora
I had no idea how bad Fanatics' reputation was before last week, but yeah it is a shockingly bad situation for the NHL. You do have to wonder if/when there will be a college that is desperate enough to sign a deal with Fanatics. We've seen what college licensing purgatory looks like with Georgia Tech and New Balance. Maybe it wouldn't be that bad, but probably pretty close.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Fanatics makes cheap garbage for every college, they already have the relationship they're looking for (see the shop at FightingIllini.com, branded at the top as "A Fanatics experience"). And they don't make basketball shoes, football cleats, receiver gloves, stuff like that, they're an apparel company not a sporting goods manufacturer so it would have to be a different sort of deal if they wanted to expand their presence.
The thing the NHL deal makes you wonder is how bad were the other offers?
Fanatics is to the sports fanwear and collectibles business what the vulture hedge funds are to the newspaper business. Gobble up legacy assets on the cheap and then degrade the product faster than the customer base can get wise and run away.
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Lol the zigzags were not pretty but I do applaud the effort to do something original and uniquely ownable to our heritage. Good idea, bad execution IMO.Maybe we could go back to the classic look with throwbacks to the zig zags?
chrisRunner7
- Spokane, WA
1LL1NO1S... it's like they ran low on their budget while doing Missouri basketball's redesign and gave us some cheap knockoffs as a result.
We need to DITCH the 1LL1NOIS look. Why can't someone figure out a consistent classic look?1LL1NO1S... it's like they ran low on their budget while doing Missouri basketball's redesign and gave us some cheap knockoffs as a result.
A simple cursive Illini as someone suggested earlier would be much better!
How about this?
Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
- Bloomington, IL
Personally, I don't care for cursive and I don't think it looks all that classic. Block letters, as boring as some think they are, are classic as hell.
I submit the following as support of the timelessness of block lettering.
Duke Blue Devils Jersey History - Basketball Jersey Archive
Duke Blue Devils jersey history. Check out the evolution of the Duke Blue Devils uniforms on Basketball Jersey Archive.
basketballjerseyarchive.com
Indiana Hoosiers Jersey History - Basketball Jersey Archive
Indiana Hoosiers jersey history. Check out the evolution of the Indiana Hoosiers uniforms on Basketball Jersey Archive.
basketballjerseyarchive.com
North Carolina Tar Heels Jersey History - Basketball Jersey Archive
North Carolina Tar Heels jersey history. Check out the evolution of the North Carolina Tar Heels uniforms on Basketball Jersey Archive.
basketballjerseyarchive.com
Michigan Wolverines Jersey History - Basketball Jersey Archive
Michigan Wolverines jersey history. Check out the evolution of the Michigan Wolverines uniforms on Basketball Jersey Archive.
basketballjerseyarchive.com
chrisRunner7
- Spokane, WA
I'd take that over 1LL1NO1S any day
Traditional, cleaner and less cluttered than "Fighting Illini"(which is the best uni that we have now). Spoon liked it.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
It absolutely was! I would love for a set of white/orange/blue FIGHTING ILLINI jerseys to be our regulars and occasionally busting out the white/orange/script jerseys VERY selectively (like the UC game or Braggin' Rights or NCAAT games).
Yeah, it looks completely awful ... but I don't think it's an intellectually responsible conclusion to assume Nike like actively pushes Illinois down the pecking order compared to a school like Mizzou just because they totally struck out with our last design.1LL1NO1S... it's like they ran low on their budget while doing Missouri basketball's redesign and gave us some cheap knockoffs as a result.
redwingillini11
White and Sixth
- North Aurora
I do appreciate your opinion. And I am as pro-Nike as anyone can be. However, there are a number of signs that they do not prioritize us. Uniforms are part of it. I am pretty sure we were perhaps the last Power 5 team that was wearing Nike's mid-2000s lame piping template that we had until the 2014 rebrand.
I spend a lot of time on the Nike Online Store, and looking at the gear for different colleges. We normally have just a handful of items up there, and they are all usually bland rinse and repeat template items that they have with all of their schools, where you can barely tell they are Illinois-specific gear. Meanwhile, comparable schools like Iowa have ~40 choices up there. Even schools that have smaller deals with Nike than we do, like Virginia, West Virginia, and Syracuse always have multiple times more gear available on Nike's website. They just don't take us seriously as a customer base.
Our last Nike contract extension came with an interim AD. I hope that next time around Josh Whitman has the opportunity to at least flirt with alternative options, so that we can negotiate a better deal with Nike in the end.
Illin618
I forgot the last i in my username
- Southern IL
This is what we need. These 6 jerseys. Nothing more, nothing less.I know we wore them for the Arizona game last year, because I attended that one. We also wore them for Braggin' Rights, IIRC. My impression from last year (and the year before) is that we GENERALLY wore the throwbacks for "big games" (with the exception of wearing the regular oranges for the "Orange Out" vs. OSU last year) and wore the regulars for the other games ... and it created a weird situation where we were pretty much wearing our four jerseys at equal frequencies, and the throwbacks didn't feel like a "special occasion" thing at all.
On that last point, I think that's why a lot of fans like me just wanted the throwbacks to be the main jerseys. Seriously, other than this weird attachment to throwbacks being special (which is ridiculous, because schools with great jerseys like Kansas and Michigan just wear classic jerseys all the time, and it looks great!!), what is the argument for wearing our new ones? I respect a difference of opinion and all, but I don't think I have heard a single person say they don't prefer the throwbacks, haha.
I guess I understand the desire for consistency across sports, and the script is a very specific look ... so, if it were up to me, we would go with the 1980s "FIGHTING ILLINI" as our default font for everything, making our hoops jerseys:
Home
Away
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Alternate (Hardly ever worn, as blue is cursed, amirite??
Throwback #1 (Big/special games and definitely each year at the UC and Braggin' Rights)
Throwback #2 (Big/special games and definitely each year at the UC and Braggin' Rights)
Throwback #3 (Busted out in the 2024-25 season to honor the anniversary!)
[DIA: I am willing and able to join the team...]
Maybe run a little Picket Fence action on offense as well!
Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
- Bloomington, IL
Gotta find some regulation peach baskets.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Yeah, I really appreciated the sentiment ... it was a nice shoutout to the Chief. I'll go further and say that I only really thought it looked that bad with hindsight.
Conversely, I always thought our 2005 era jerseys were kind of boring and actually LIKED the switch to the 2007 and on ones at the time. It's only now that I see our 2005 ones as classic and the later revisions as too try-hard and dumb. It could be nostalgia, but I also generally think that ~2007 to ~2015 was just an awful stretch for college uniforms, haha.
The zigzags were a nod to our past, but we had no other nod to that so it felt very out of place. I do like the current blue uniforms the best out of the new uniforms (non-throwback division) for that reason, it's the only uniform that has some connection to Illini heritage.
I'm still waiting for one of our players to tell us what flavor gum one of the following players was chewing...
Pickett
Jackson-Davis
Buie
Perkins
etc.
whats the connection the current blues have?