Illini Basketball Uniforms

OrangeBlue98 · Apr 23, 2025

Fighter of the Nightman said:
I thought it would be interesting to look at our (pre-West Coast expansion) Big Ten peers. To keep it simple and try to make it as apples to apples as possible, I looked at every team's "default/regular" home white uniform, excluding throwbacks.

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Maryland

Michigan

Michigan State

Minnesota

Nebraska

Northwestern

Ohio State

Penn State

Purdue

Rutgers

Wisconsin

Again, just my subjective opinion ... but we seem to combine the worst of both worlds as far as (A) playing it safe and having a "simple" design yet (B) not looking traditional/classic at all.

To be totally fair, I think this would work better with the main road uniforms. Always better to compare school colors instead of the home whites.

Illini in OC · Apr 24, 2025

PepeSilvia said:
I can only accept Abe if he's in a wrestling singlet.

I couldn't find a wrestling singlet.
How about this one?

Fighter of the Nightman · Apr 24, 2025

OrangeBlue98 said:
To be totally fair, I think this would work better with the main road uniforms. Always better to compare school colors instead of the home whites.

I can take a look at those, too, but I think our default/regular orange is easily our worst uniform … so my opinion will almost certainly be the same, haha.

OrangeBlue98 · Apr 24, 2025

Fighter of the Nightman said:
I can take a look at those, too, but I think our default/regular orange is easily our worst uniform … so my opinion will almost certainly be the same, haha.

Oh, I agree that the opinions/rankings probably won't change a lot, but that's more of a personal thought on my part.

PopChampaign · Apr 24, 2025

Fighter of the Nightman said:
I thought it would be interesting to look at our (pre-West Coast expansion) Big Ten peers. To keep it simple and try to make it as apples to apples as possible, I looked at every team's "default/regular" home white uniform, excluding throwbacks.

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Maryland

Michigan

Michigan State

Minnesota

Nebraska

Northwestern

Ohio State

Penn State

Purdue

Rutgers

Wisconsin

Again, just my subjective opinion ... but we seem to combine the worst of both worlds as far as (A) playing it safe and having a "simple" design yet (B) not looking traditional/classic at all.

I agree, worst in the B1G outside of penn state imo, we just need the script in white, orange AND navy and then then the throwback orange fighting Illini jerseys

jezzadownunder · Apr 25, 2025

When would we likely hear anything on the uniform front? Maybe our guys @Indy Illini Fan and @LvilleILL can also ask around about this once the recruiting / portal dust settles?

Fighter of the Nightman · Apr 25, 2025

^ Haha, it takes all of my self discipline not to beg our insiders to comment on the uniform situation.

I get that would be way down their list of priorities for which to obtain insider information, but man ... they could give us some really interesting insight into whether this is at least on anyone else's radar or if Brad and Josh wake up every day under the delusion that our 1LL1NO1S uniforms are cool.

Fighter of the Nightman · Apr 25, 2025

OrangeBlue98 said:
To be totally fair, I think this would work better with the main road uniforms. Always better to compare school colors instead of the home whites.

As promised! The away and alternate uniforms for the pre-West Coast Big Ten:

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Maryland

Michigan

Michigan State

Minnesota

Nebraska

Northwestern

Ohio State

Penn State

Fighter of the Nightman · Apr 25, 2025

PART 2
(Can only upload 20 images in a post, lol...)

Purdue

Rutgers

Wisconsin

A couple things seem very clear:

1. As if Adidas uniforms weren't bad enough, I am shocked any school EVER lets them create a "special" uniform ... holy moly, they are always bad!! I have seen other awful special uniforms they have put out, but those practice jerseys they touted as uniforms for Indiana, Nebraska and Rutgers ones are comically awful, haha.
2. You really have to judge schools in two different groups - those that have one primary color and white (e.g., Nebraska and Wisconsin) vs. those who have two clear/bold primary colors (e.g., Illinois, Iowa or Michigan). For that second category, the uniforms that properly incorporate BOTH colors look so much better. Michigan. Part of what bothers me SO much about our orange default is that we just have plain white font with no navy outline on an orange uniform, making us look like Tennessee or something, and the navy is way too understated on the rest of the jersey. To compare to an actually good uniform like Michigan's, the analogy would be for Michigan's yellow uniform to just have plain white font on it with no navy to be seen except for a generically bland and awkward neck collar, haha.

So yeah, of these I would go with...

Great
Michigan Navy (currently the best non-throwback uniform in the Big Ten by quite a lot...)
Michigan Yellow

Good Given Its Goals
Indiana Red
Maryland Red (if you can tolerate the "vibe" Maryland has always kind of had, this is a very solid jersey)
Michigan State Green (never loved their font, myself, but they're rollin' with it)

Solid
Purdue Black
Minnesota Yellow (for some reason, if you can learn to love their colors, this one actually works kind of well)
Northwestern Purple

Okay But Boring (i.e., Nothin' Special, Nothin' Terrible)
Rutgers Red

Truly Average
Nebraska Red (would be in the "Solid" category with a striping pattern that looked like they actually tried)
Iowa Black (would be higher without weird stripes and a font outline)
Wisconsin Red
Purdue Gold (would be higher without weird/huge striping pattern)
Minnesota Maroon (striping works less here than with the yellow one, IMO)
Michigan State Black (not terrible or anything, but I hate putting a logo rather than words on a basketball jersey ... and again, enough with the black!)
Ohio State Red

Sub-Par
Illinois Navy (the 1LL1NO1S font really carries a lot of weight...)
Indiana Black (just a weird color combo for them...)
Maryland Yellow (this could have been done better, needs more white to soften things)
Penn State Navy (this is TOO boring to get into the "Okay But Boring" category)
Maryland Black (too much, and schools should stop trying to incorporate black unnaturally into their color schemes)

Bad
Illinois Orange
Rutgers Practice Jersey

Laughably Cringe
Indiana Practice Jersey
Nebraska Practice Jersey

It is ASTONISHING how awful we would make nearly everyone in the conference look in comparison if we simply adopted an ounce of competence and had the two throwbacks as our uniforms to compare to the rest of these scrubs...

the juiceman cometh · Apr 25, 2025

Fighter of the Nightman said:
Indiana

Nebraska

Criticize Nike all you want, but at least they've never done this to us.

Fighter of the Nightman · Apr 25, 2025

the juiceman cometh said:
Criticize Nike all you want, but at least they've never done this to us.

Yeah, they are so bad, haha. I think the worst you could say about Nike is that they have effectively mailed it in for several schools. And given that schools with AT BEST equal "brand value" to us like Missouri have gotten new throwback sets from Nike recently, I am inclined to believe (as others here have suggested) that it is more a matter of what programs are proactively reaching out to Nike for concepts ... and if a program doesn't do that and also doesn't have a defined look that spans multiple eras (i.e., updates are super easy), they'll get the simple neck collar, minimalist font/number setup template that Nike is currently using for its one-size-fits-all, where the most effort they put in is applying the school's unique font and making super easy-to-do touch-ups to the stripes.

mens-nike-number-23-orange-illinois-fighting-illini-replica-basketball-jersey_ss5_p-200398454+pv-2+u-8lvskvx5ybuel7er5ye3+v-z5i8fvgcndzkcbf8tqlu.jpg

mens-nike-rbl-depaul-blue-demons-adult-basketball-jersey_ss10_p-101411199+u-gpduc5aegn2duyurv300+v-6ujgbb02ub2yt9xl9ewc.jpg

mens-nike-number-1-black-iowa-hawkeyes-road-replica-jersey_ss5_p-201169626+pv-2+u-dhoxlsfkvsyaohu4n20w+v-txjgzspoankb6wjlknya.jpg

mens-nike-number-4-black-colorado-buffaloes-team-replica-basketball-jersey_pi3641000_altimages_ff_3641882-e692ee532578efdbbfd3alt2_full.jpg

mens-nike-number-1-black-vanderbilt-commodores-replica-basketball-jersey_ss5_p-200398442+pv-2+u-ob4kf2bke1wgj80bx7fj+v-yo1evcyi6m4cshjagjbj.jpg

mens-nike-number-1-cardinal-stanford-cardinal-team-replica-basketball-jersey_pi3641000_altimages_ff_3641902-04d8648404fcca499348alt2_full.jpg

I know there is only so much you can do with a basketball uniform, haha ... but that stretch of images from Alabama to Arkansas to Stanford is objectively hilarious. And it's not like these are all scrubs!! Programs like Illinois, Arkansas, Alabama, Purdue and obviously Kentucky have had incredible visibility over the last 5+ years! Compare that to some of the other Nike and/or Jordan Brand uniforms that actually have multiple layers of striping, better-sized font, actual font outlines, etc. and just look SO much less cheap, at least to me even WHEN they go the ultra-simple route:

mens-nike-white-missouri-tigers-retro-replica-basketball-jersey_ss5_p-202292204+pv-2+u-s0z0alkypodegilhw0op+v-qnifroozehinfun20q1f.jpg

mens-nike-number-1-red-st-johns-red-storm-replica-basketball-jersey_pi5200000_altimages_ff_5200451-b87b2a9bfa8441c28c5calt2_full.jpg

I know some of those are big brands so we'll get some self-hating Illini fans claiming we don't matter enough for Nike to throw us a bone, but ... (1) there is no universe where St. John's and Missouri just have this exponentially larger amount of leverage than Illinois, LOL and (2) this point is obviously disproven by big basketball brands being in that boring first category with us. And to tie all of this back to my original wish list, it is no coincidence that our two throwbacks have A LOT more in common with that second group of superior jerseys:

In summary? It simply HAS to be that Josh/Brad couldn't care less or some awful contract was signed with Nike and we are stuck until some future date.

PMoola · Apr 25, 2025

Random observation - The “d” in the script “Indiana” is so annoying to me. It’s like that one letter is too upright compared to the rest of the word - the top loop should be on the right side of the upstroke, not the left. I don’t remember when I first noticed it, but I can’t unsee it. Not a uniform problem - a logo problem

OrangeBlue98 · Apr 25, 2025

Fighter of the Nightman said:
In summary? It simply HAS to be that Josh/Brad couldn't care less or some awful contract was signed with Nike and we are stuck until some future date.

If anyone involved with the design/selection of basketball uniforms is reading this thread, I'm going to do you job for you and you can thank me later. Use these two uniforms as your template.

Scripts (For all uniforms, keep the "diamond" in white with a blue block I on these like with the whites)
Orange uniform - "Replace the orange trim with white."
Blue uniform - "Replace the blue letters and numbers with white. Make the trim orange/white/orange".

Flying Illini (Orange Block I on the shorts)
White uniform - "Replace the white letters/numbers with blue and the blue number trim with orange. Replace the white side trim with blue."
Blue uniform - "Replace the white letters/numbers with orange and the blue trim with white."

There. Done. Finished. Make it happen.

the juiceman cometh · Apr 25, 2025

PMoola said:
Random observation - The “d” in the script “Indiana” is so annoying to me. It’s like that one letter is too upright compared to the rest of the word - the top loop should be on the right side of the upstroke, not the left. I don’t remember when I first noticed it, but I can’t unsee it. Not a uniform problem - a logo problem

Never noticed this before, and going forward it will be the only thing I notice. Funny how the brain works that way.

PepeSilvia · Apr 26, 2025

Fighter of the Nightman said:
PART 2
(Can only upload 20 images in a post, lol...)

Purdue

Rutgers

Wisconsin

A couple things seem very clear:

1. As if Adidas uniforms weren't bad enough, I am shocked any school EVER lets them create a "special" uniform ... holy moly, they are always bad!! I have seen other awful special uniforms they have put out, but those practice jerseys they touted as uniforms for Indiana, Nebraska and Rutgers ones are comically awful, haha.
2. You really have to judge schools in two different groups - those that have one primary color and white (e.g., Nebraska and Wisconsin) vs. those who have two clear/bold primary colors (e.g., Illinois, Iowa or Michigan). For that second category, the uniforms that properly incorporate BOTH colors look so much better. Michigan. Part of what bothers me SO much about our orange default is that we just have plain white font with no navy outline on an orange uniform, making us look like Tennessee or something, and the navy is way too understated on the rest of the jersey. To compare to an actually good uniform like Michigan's, the analogy would be for Michigan's yellow uniform to just have plain white font on it with no navy to be seen except for a generically bland and awkward neck collar, haha.

So yeah, of these I would go with...

Great
Michigan Navy (currently the best non-throwback uniform in the Big Ten by quite a lot...)
Michigan Yellow

Good Given Its Goals
Indiana Red
Maryland Red (if you can tolerate the "vibe" Maryland has always kind of had, this is a very solid jersey)
Michigan State Green (never loved their font, myself, but they're rollin' with it)

Solid
Purdue Black
Minnesota Yellow (for some reason, if you can learn to love their colors, this one actually works kind of well)
Northwestern Purple

Okay But Boring (i.e., Nothin' Special, Nothin' Terrible)
Rutgers Red

Truly Average
Nebraska Red (would be in the "Solid" category with a striping pattern that looked like they actually tried)
Iowa Black (would be higher without weird stripes and a font outline)
Wisconsin Red
Purdue Gold (would be higher without weird/huge striping pattern)
Minnesota Maroon (striping works less here than with the yellow one, IMO)
Michigan State Black (not terrible or anything, but I hate putting a logo rather than words on a basketball jersey ... and again, enough with the black!)
Ohio State Red

Sub-Par
Illinois Navy (the 1LL1NO1S font really carries a lot of weight...)
Indiana Black (just a weird color combo for them...)
Maryland Yellow (this could have been done better, needs more white to soften things)
Penn State Navy (this is TOO boring to get into the "Okay But Boring" category)
Maryland Black (too much, and schools should stop trying to incorporate black unnaturally into their color schemes)

Bad
Illinois Orange
Rutgers Practice Jersey

Laughably Cringe
Indiana Practice Jersey
Nebraska Practice Jersey

It is ASTONISHING how awful we would make nearly everyone in the conference look in comparison if we simply adopted an ounce of competence and had the two throwbacks as our uniforms to compare to the rest of these scrubs...

I actually kind of like the black Indiana jersey despite it being a weird color outside of the atrocious Adidas collar logo.

It reminds me a bit of the Bulls jersey without pinstripes.

LadyLoyalty · Apr 26, 2025

From The Champaign Room today:
The dream scenario for Illinois’ basketball uniforms

Fighter of the Nightman · Apr 28, 2025

Well, after wasting a ton of time ... I have a few Flyin' Illini mock-ups, haha. Minor note that I think my "inside stripes" (e.g., the orange in the first picture) should be smaller compared to the outer ones ... so use your imagination, haha.

Home Version 1 (throwback we had during the Groce years)

Home Version 2 (possibly early 1980s version?)

Alternate Version 1 (Actual throwback uniform we have right now)

Alternate Version 2 (to my knowledge never worn)

Away Version 1 (actual jersey worn back in 1989)

Alternate Version 2 (I believe worn in the early 1980s)

I would try to do a similar thing with the Script uniforms, but this honestly took me forever and it was with block letters ... I would stand no chance against the cursive font in MS Paint.

Anyway, I would still prefer that our uniform rotation has both the Flyin' Illini AND Script patterns, but I would be fine with Flyin' Illini being our "regular" or more common one. And if that is the case, I would go with the two actual Flyin' Illini uniforms for white and orange (Home v1 and Alternate v1) but go with the early 1980s pattern for the navy (Away v2).

Fighter of the Nightman · Apr 29, 2025

Fighter of the Nightman said:
...I would try to do a similar thing with the Script uniforms, but this honestly took me forever and it was with block letters ... I would stand no chance against the cursive font in MS Paint.

Well, it turns out that in addition to me being a uniform-obsessed psychopath, I am also a liar ... because I did take on the Script jersey in MS Paint!!

Home Version 1 (the actual throwback we have right now)

Home Version 2 (Version 1 but with colors inverted ... never worn to my knowledge)

Alternate Version 1 (actual orange uniform worn in the 1970s)

Alternate Version 2 (colors inverted, to my knowledge never worn)

Away Version 1 (if this was worn in the 1970s, I cannot find evidence anywhere)

Away Version 2 (inverted colors, also cannot find evidence if we ever had a navy Script uniform like this)

Fighter of the Nightman · Apr 29, 2025

Now with all of these versions in my MS Paint accomplishment archive, this would be my final wish list for our uniforms going forward:

Home - Worn in the majority of home games, to effectively slide into the place of our current white defaults.

Away - Worn for ~50% of road games, to be used alongside the alternate. Prioritized for road trips to red schools like Indiana, Wisconsin, Nebraska, etc.

Alternate - Worn semi-regularly on the road (to be used alongside the navy away uniform above) and occasionally at home ... maybe for weekend games or something? Since this one is so popular and we seem to prefer orange over navy, this would probably EFFECTIVELY be our default away jersey.

Throwback Home - Theoretically worn for "special games" (loosely defined) and maybe especially prioritized for big neutral site events like the United Center, the BTT, NCAA Tournament, etc.

Throwback Away - Used the least of our uniforms but still in our back pocket for a really big road game or when we are the lower seed in something like the BTT or NCAA Tournament. I could be persuaded to go with the version that has white font and an orange outline (which would mirror the striping pattern better), but I think the orange font pops more.

Throwback Alternate - Used more often than the navy Script but perhaps less often than the white Script? I would be open to ideas. I DO think, however, that this should almost always be our Braggin' Rights uniform to give it some sort of special purpose ... our colors match up with MIzzou's well enough that I think neither team should ever wear white for that game to hammer home that it is a neutral court rivalry event (similar to USC and UCLA both wearing their home uniforms in football when they play?). Same thing with the font ... I could be convinced that the white with navy outline is better, but this is the actual one we had in the 1970s, so I went with this.

Serious Late · Apr 29, 2025

It kind of makes me sad that our best unis from the '70s and '80s. Like, come on, we could have had script Illinois for the last 50 years. With alternates of the Flying Illini block letters for almost 40 years. What a classic, crisp, defining look we could already OWN. We have enough data to prove that new fonts aren't beating these.

One classic, main look. Script Illinois is great. One main alternate, Block "Fighting Illini" set. A second alternate set to play around with modern looks.

I also approve of replacing "Fighting" with "Flying" on the jerseys occasionally as an "inside baseball" reference for an alternate look.

I haven't bought a single item in the new font branding. Just buying offbeat products with other fonts. Just grabbed the "daddy domask just triple doubled you" shirt off nilstore and the Xavier Scott "X Gon' Take It From Ya" hoodie. Point being, I'm not buying the officially licensed Illini gear because it isn't very cool.

(Way random side note, I HATE the lack of genuinely cool hat offerings from Illinois. We need more flatbills with unique designs. PLEASE.)

21ChampaignSt · Apr 29, 2025

Serious Late said:
It kind of makes me sad that our best unis from the '70s and '80s. Like, come on, we could have had script Illinois for the last 50 years. With alternates of the Flying Illini block letters for almost 40 years. What a classic, crisp, defining look we could already OWN. We have enough data to prove that new fonts aren't beating these.

Agree.

I've posted the exact number here before, but we've had at least one Fighting Illini uniform in the rotation something like 30 of the last 45 years.

Let's just commit to it for good!

Fighter of the Nightman · Apr 29, 2025

21ChampaignSt said:
Agree.

I've posted the exact number here before, but we've had at least one Fighting Illini uniform in the rotation something like 30 of the last 45 years.

Let's just commit to it for good!

I know the itch to try something new is powerful and it's difficult to recognize something as "classic" when it is simply the current norm ... but why on EARTH did we switch away from the Flyin' Illini set in what looks like 1994 or so?? By that point, we had been rockin' some type of FIGHTING ILLINI uniform for almost 15 years, and it was the uniform that reestablished us as a nationally relevant brand in the 1980s. It seems like a bizarre decision that sent us into the uniform wilderness literally until we readopted throwbacks in the last decade. I mean, even the 2001-2006 set is mostly getting love now for its nostalgia associated with the amazing teams that wore it, but it was not this super iconic uniform at any point in the last 25 years!

While I love the Script (I could honestly be persuaded to have the Script as the "default" and Flyin' Illini as the "throwback"), it was worn by some pretty bad teams. I could see moving on from it a lot easier than I could moving on from the Flyin' Illini set.

Whitmans Sampler · Apr 29, 2025

Fighter of the Nightman said:
Well, it turns out that in addition to me being a uniform-obsessed psychopath, I am also a liar ... because I did take on the Script jersey in MS Paint!!

Home Version 1 (the actual throwback we have right now)
View attachment 42151
Home Version 2 (Version 1 but with colors inverted ... never worn to my knowledge)
View attachment 42152

Alternate Version 1 (actual orange uniform worn in the 1970s)
View attachment 42153

Alternate Version 2 (colors inverted, to my knowledge never worn)
View attachment 42154
Away Version 1 (if this was worn in the 1970s, I cannot find evidence anywhere)
View attachment 42155

Away Version 2 (inverted colors, also cannot find evidence if we ever had a navy Script uniform like this)
View attachment 42156

Alternate Version 1 has my whole heart.

21ChampaignSt · Apr 29, 2025

Fighter of the Nightman said:
I know the itch to try something new is powerful and it's difficult to recognize something as "classic" when it is simply the current norm ... but why on EARTH did we switch away from the Flyin' Illini set in what looks like 1994 or so?? By that point, we had been rockin' some type of FIGHTING ILLINI uniform for almost 15 years, and it was the uniform that reestablished us as a nationally relevant brand in the 1980s. It seems like a bizarre decision that sent us into the uniform wilderness literally until we readopted throwbacks in the last decade. I mean, even the 2001-2006 set is mostly getting love now for its nostalgia associated with the amazing teams that wore it, but it was not this super iconic uniform at any point in the last 25 years!

While I love the Script (I could honestly be persuaded to have the Script as the "default" and Flyin' Illini as the "throwback"), it was worn by some pretty bad teams. I could see moving on from it a lot easier than I could moving on from the Flyin' Illini set.

Some of those mid to late 90s uniforms are just bad. And you know they're bad because over the last few years, 90s fashion has made a resurgence, but even so, no one is pining to bring those sets back.

I mean...what?

RichardKeenesCousin · Apr 29, 2025

21ChampaignSt said:
You don't think the Charlotte Hornets, who have never finished higher than 4th in the east, had an immediately identifiable jersey in the 90s? You can't close your eyes and picture their jersey? You don't recall how kids throughout the country who had absolutely no ties to North Carolina wore Hornets jerseys, windbreakers, and hats in the 90s?

They didn't win - at least not to the existent that you're claiming teams need to in order for their jerseys to be recognized - but their jerseys still built equity for their brand on a scale that wouldn't have been possible with a more generic design.

I'll add that I still have my Kendall Gill Hornets jersey. It makes me happy.

Illini Basketball Uniforms

OrangeBlue98

Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)

Illini in OC

In. The. Alley.

Fighter of the Nightman

OrangeBlue98

Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)

PopChampaign

jezzadownunder

Fighter of the Nightman

Fighter of the Nightman

Fighter of the Nightman

the juiceman cometh

Fighter of the Nightman

PMoola

OrangeBlue98

Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)

the juiceman cometh

PepeSilvia

LadyLoyalty

Fighter of the Nightman

Attachments

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Serious Late

21ChampaignSt

Fighter of the Nightman

Whitmans Sampler

21ChampaignSt

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Richard Keene's Cousin