Season Uniform Preview - Part 1

It's finally game week! To kick things off this week, guest contributor and the Jungle's very own Clint Richardson has given a rundown on the uniforms of every single team on the schedule this season, plus a few extra. (check out his awesome Auburn uniform blog!) The post is divided into two parts: non-conference and SEC. So without further ado, here's part 1 of Clint's 2013 uniform preview!

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Hello Jungle! First and foremost I would like to thank our King for allowing me to do this kind of thing. He will be doing a season preview post for my blog, so you can check that out here. King and I are both really into uniforms, (Uni Nerds as we prefer) and I thought he would be interested in a uniform run down for this year in college basketball. So, let’s start with the opponents our Auburn Tigers will be playing, and especially with the new uniforms we will be seeing in our own home. This post will be split into two days, one for the non-conference schedule, and another for the SEC schedule and some other miscellaneous uniform notes.

Basketball uniforms are a lot more templatic than football uniforms, meaning that someone like Nike has a few simple designs and just throw different color combinations and logos on it and be done with it. Through this list, you will see many of the same designs, and then again many different templates from the same manufacturer.

• Our Tigers open the season at home on November 8, hosting Nicholls State from Louisiana, which is the beginning of a five game home stand. (versus State teams at that) As a small school, don’t expect the Colonels to change their uniforms up much. This picture is from their athletic website, so expect to see the red uniform on our court. Even without a maker’s mark, these are Adidas uniforms, with the tell-tale sign being the necklace thing…
• Northwestern State comes to town next. And for two weeks in a row, we see the same Adidas template. As another small team, don’t expect much difference from these uniforms.
• Three games, three Adidas teams. Jacksonville State makes the trip to Auburn next. Thankfully they use a different template than the last two. And I really like the JSU abbreviation on the front of the jersey.
• Murray State will be by far the toughest challenge of the season to this point, and our first non-Adidas team. But Murray State is one of those “decent teams in an awful conference” teams that Nike loves to go after. So don’t be surprised at all if MSU changes their uniforms. I hate that Nike leaves the V part of the neck in this template to contrast the collar… This is what they wore last year, and here’s ol’ pal Frankie staring ‘em down last year.
• Tennessee State rounds out the home/State team stand. And we end this stretch with playing another Adidas team. That makes four teams in five games. A little ridiculous don’t you think? But I highly doubt that the schedule makers care about that when making the schedules. And out of all the Adidas teams so far, this is my favorite set.
• The first road game of the year is at Iowa State in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge (formerly SEC/Big East Invitational). Iowa State actually announced their new uniforms this off season, which makes the first team we play that announced their new unis. Very sleek, clean, and simple. But too simple? Possibly. (Am I the only one that would love to see us wear blue against the yellow or red uniforms?
• So this has to be one of the coolest (and most under rated promotion) in college basketball. Last year, Illinois hosted Auburn in the Chicago Bulls arena, and this year, we host Illinois in the Atlanta Hawks arena. Why haven’t other teams done this before? (or at least why haven’t I heard about this?) Anyways, back to the uniforms. The Illini updated their uniforms in 2011, so they’re WAY past due for a Nike makeover! The most interesting part of these are the gradient name plates on the front, which are a really cool effect.
• After two road games, Clemson now comes to town. Clemson has some really simple and nice uniforms. And I have always loved that they still wear the American flag patch that they (and the rest of college basketball) started wearing after the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks.
• After a terribly disappointing loss to Boston College last year, I for one am excited for revenge. BC received new uniforms last year along with Auburn and Northwestern; all three were unveiled at the same time. But low and behold, Under Armour is giving them new uniforms again this year! We haven’t seen the entire set in one picture yet, but we do have a few sneak peeks that have been released. Although we have only seen the white version, expect to see the maroon version to be exactly the same.
• Arkansas-Pine Bluff is (hopefully) the next victim on the schedule. I’ll apologize now, I couldn’t find any good pictures of this team. This is the best I could do. But if you look closely (real close, microscopically close) you can see the logo of a Russell Athletics. Yes, the same company that outfitted our Auburn Tigers for decades. The same company that was stationed an hour north of campus in Alexander City. (they have since moved to Bowling Green, KY) So we finally have hit all three big name makers (Nike, Under Armour, Adidas) and now one that used to be really big. (Reebok owns Russell, so that’s why you won’t see Reebok in college and Russell in the pros, even though Reebok no longer has the NFL contract)
• To wrap up the non-conference schedule, Auburn will be hosting the most colorful team in all of college athletics. The Florida A&M Rattlers come to town, and boy, they have some loud uniforms. Oh, sorry, I was stuck on the football uniforms…Thankfully the basketball uniforms are a bit more toned down. I’m not certain if they have an orange uniform in this set, but don’t be surprised if they break one out this year. They do love orange…

And that does it for day one. I hope you enjoyed it! I’ll be back later this week for part two and the SEC schedule!

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to stop by my blog. What started out as a project to document each and every uniform worn by Auburn basketball has ventured into an all-around Auburn athletic uniform site, including weekly uniform matchups. Hope you enjoy!

War Eagle!