About That Bright Orange NCAA Tournament Basketball
NEW ORLEANS — I walked into the Superdome on April 1 with an immediate priority: I needed to see and feel those hyper-orange basketballs for myself.
The dayglo hue of the Wilsons used in this year’s NCAA Tournament jumped out to me from the moment the First Four tipped off, the color reminiscent more of a child’s Crayola drawing of a basketball than any actual game ball I had ever seen.
Twitter reaction suggests I wasn’t alone in my response.
Now, Mark Cuban has a tendency to be overly dramatic and hyperbolic on social media, but I’ll admit that my first impression was that the Wilson EVO NXT looked like a low-grade rubber basketball intended for outdoor use.
Anyone who’s ever used one knows exactly the kind of ball to which I refer. When inflated, they bounce like a Superball — but they rarely stay inflated. At first use, the grip is uncanny, but they become as slick as bowling balls after a few runs.
Even in the pantheon of outdoor basketballs, they’re awful, a point to which my dad reminded me in a text conversation on Friday. My dad was a successful high school coach for 30 years, and often worked Lute Olson Basketball Camps in the summer.
Campers at the end of each session received a rubber outdoor ball with alternating red-and-blue panels. I still have one from my last summer as a counselor there, which was 15 years ago, and it’s held up shockingly well.
His take was that the camp basketballs were superior to the EVO NXT:
With regard to the bright-orange coloring, the first thing that came to mind for me were stories from Terry Pluto’s book Loose Balls. Players in the league lamented that the American Basketball Association’s iconic red-white-and-blue ball were slick and thus difficult to handle.
Even more absurd than the ABA basketballs were the short-lived red-and-black XFL Ver. 1.0 footballs. The dye made them so slick, they had to be sanded down before games.
Not all balls with non-traditional coloring are so difficult to handle, of course. I noted the Lute Olson Camp basketball has served well as a back-up option for years now — but it’s also rubber. The ABA basketball and XFL football were both leather, as rubber simply cannot be used for professional sports.
And, the game balls traditionally being leather explains the rich mahogany1 coloration to which many of us are accustomed.
The Wilson EVO NXT isn’t leather, but rather a leather composite that feels different upon first use. When I held one on Friday, I initially didn’t like it. Villanova guard Caleb Daniels and I had that in common.
“They’ve definitely been weird to get used to,” Daniels said. “Our Big East balls are different texture and what-not. But we’ve been practicing with them a lot. After the Big East Tournament was over, we started practicing with those.”
“It’s definitely different,” North Carolina’s Brady Manek confirmed. “But it’s actually a pretty good ball. It reminds of me when I was little, playing with Revolutions back in the day. But there is a difference. Throughout the year, we play different schools and they all use different basketballs.”
College basketball not having a uniform ball is somewhat surprising, given the NBA has an exclusivity contract with Wilson and each game ball is essentially the same.
The NCAA Tournament ball is uniform — this season is the last of a 20-year contract with Wilson — but throughout the regular season, a team can see Wilson, Spalding, Nike. It all depends on the hosts’ contracts, and opponents have to adjust accordingly.
Not everyone needed time to acclimate quite, however.
“We played with them before, Notre Dame, Georgia Tech and Louisville,” North Carolina’s Caleb Love said. “I feel like that’s the best ball we’ve ever played with.”
Whoa — the best ball?
“Yeah,” Love said. “Because of the grip. That and the Nike ball.”
Love’s offense has been otherworldly in the NCAA Tournament, capped off with a 28-point effort in the national semifinal against Duke.
Maybe somewhat akin to another Tar Heel before him, for Love, It’s Gotta Be The Ball2?
OK, so the ball probably isn’t behind Love’s outstanding postseason anymore than Nikes made MJ the greatest player of his generation. In the same vein, the basketball itself arguably hasn’t hurt teams in the NCAA Tournament as much as some like Mark Cuban have insinuated.
After speaking to players about their experiences, and two days after initially given them a feel for myself, I curried up the courage to dribble around the Superdome hardwood and take a few shots.
It’s cut from the video, but I airballed my first shot attempt taken with one hand and attempting to film. Not the ball’s fault, though. Once I took some legitimate mid-range attempts, the EVO NXT felt great.
Easy to grip, perfect bounce off the dribble, and a nice, smooth roll off the fingers when I released. I hit a few shots, too, including one from the spot where Jordan sank Georgetown in 1982.
If you ever played with a fresh Spalding Top Flite, you know it also smells of rich mahogany, much like Ron Burgundy’s apartment.
Mars Blackmon here!