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Each March for the past two years, Adidas has pursued a diabolically postmodern marketing strategy. Instead of making uniforms that looked good, the German apparel company instead made uniforms that were actively bad. In 2012, it outfitted Baylor and Louisville with fluorescent green and hunter orange duds. The response was widespread and uniform: Look how bad those uniforms are! Who would wear those?! Last March, Adidas took that recipe to a new level, giving a score of teams with Adidas contracts uniforms that looked like re-purposed Zubaz pants. Unable to compete with Nike basketball's peerless industrial design on its actual merits, Adidas had instead decided to raise its brand awareness through what essentially amounted to the marketing version of a comment-board troll. It didn't matter that the response was negative. Attention of any kind was a win. It was safe to assume, then, that the company's 2014 March uniform rollouts would go this way, too. If all you saw were the "Sic'Em Bears" Baylor greens, your suspicions would seem confirmed. But the actual uniforms marquee Adidas schools unveiled today are … actually pretty good?! Even Indiana's special edition uniform scheme has a classic off-white pattern, an homage to the Branch McCracken-era "Hurryin' Hoosiers." This is a shocking turn of events, and probably just the first step in a complex, multi-year troll, but still: Well played, Adidas. Well played indeed.
"An operations director for the University of New Hampshire men’s basketball team has been fired amid allegations he recorded his players in the locker room. Police said Wednesday, they had charged Scott A. Weitzell, 50, of Newmarket, N.H., with attempting to falsify evidence and resisting arrest. School officials say the allegations stem from a game at the University of Vermont in January. ... Police say additional charges such as invasion of privacy could be forthcoming."
It's not often you see a coach call out an official by name in his postgame press conference, but St. Joe's coach Phil Martelli was just that mad after Wednesday night's loss to George Washington: "We are the third-fewest fouling team in America and they shot 24 fouls shots in the second half," Martelli said. "He will want his name in the paper. His name is Jamie Luckie: He was the referee. Shame on us, we fouled. We gave up 24 foul shots in the second half and I am not sure why we would change in our 29th game, but we did."
Elizabeth Merrill's feature on Doug McDermott is not to be missed.
Which teams have surprised you the most this season? R/CollegeBasketball discusses.