The 10 Most Putrid Uniforms in College Basketball

By (Featured Columnist) on October 9, 2012

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Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

College basketball uniforms are a representation of not only the team that wears them, but the college that the team plays for. With that in mind, you'd think coaches, athletic directors and the like would make sure their jerseys are always top-notch.

But as we've seen over the years, plenty of college teams roll out onto the court wearing jerseys that just look flat-out bad.

Uniforms have evolved over the years, but that evolution has not always meant improvement. Here's a look at the 10 ugliest jerseys in college basketball history.  

Kentucky's Denim

Photo via ukwildcatsblog.com
Photo via ukwildcatsblog.com

Kentucky's current blue and white jerseys look pretty good, but I'm not sure why they ever thought that denim was a good look on a basketball court.

The Wildcats wore these jerseys in 1996, which was actually one of their best seasons in history. Rick Pitino was the coach of the team nicknamed "The Untouchables", which had nine players go on to the NBA.

The team won the NCAA championship wearing these denim jerseys, but that doesn't excuse how awful they looked. 

Oregon "Fighting" Ducks

Photo via nikeblog.com
Photo via nikeblog.com

Does anyone remember when Oregon changed their name to the "Fighting Ducks"? Probably not, because it never happened, yet they still decided to go ahead and put it on these already debatable bright yellow jerseys.

But this might not even be their worst uniform—there's always this one, and this one or this interesting idea where they decided to make the writing the same color as the jersey!

Nike puts a lot into the Oregon sports programs, and they try be innovative, but they usually just look obnoxious.

Maryland

Photo via seattletimes.com
Photo via seattletimes.com

Maryland has sort of become an East Coast/Under Armour version of Oregon, and a lot of their new jersey designs have been hideous.

It's a good thing to be proud of your state and your flag, but there's no excuse for these.

Even before the Under Armour and flag craze, Maryland had some questionable uniforms. These yellow ones, with a weird font and awful red and black down the sides, just look really bad.   

Marquette's Baby Blues

Photo via boards.sportslogos.net
Photo via boards.sportslogos.net

Marquette's jerseys have just gotten louder and louder over the years, and while some people like the multicolored stripe down the side, I think it is just obnoxious.

Their yellow ones are pretty bad too, but these baby blues with a bad dark blue font and yellow outline are about as bad as it gets. The shoulder pads aren't really helping anything either.

Back when Dwayne Wade was there, they actually had pretty nice, classic looking jerseys, and they need to go back to that style.   

Wyoming

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Ethan Miller/Getty Images

I feel bad putting Wyoming on here because they just got unlucky with a brown and yellow color scheme.

They have actually done a decent job with their jerseys since these disgusting brown ones debuted a few years back.

But this all-brown look, with the "Wyoming" being hard to read on the front and a clashing yellow-white stripe down the sides, is easily one of the worst basketball jerseys I've ever seen.   

Baylor Bears' Neon

Hi-res-141780227_display_image
Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

The neon jerseys that Baylor wore for the 2012 NCAA tournament were horrendous. The worst part is that Baylor actually had pretty nice jerseys.

But then Adidas wanted to debut their new adiZero jerseys, and the whole country was forced to watch a team dressed in neon run up and down a basketball court during the NCAA tournament. 

They also had a black one, which didn't look as bad as the yellow on the court, but is still pretty ugly up close.

Kansas State's Barney

Photo via everyjoe.com
Photo via everyjoe.com

There is literally nothing positive I could say about these jerseys. The ugly purple, the enormous white writing, the white shoulder pads, it's all just terrible.

I couldn't even find what year these were from, but it doesn't really matter because there's no time period where this would have looked good. 

Kansas State's Two-Tone

Photo via lostlettermen.com
Photo via lostlettermen.com

I was going to put these in with the previous slide about Kansas State's "Barney" jerseys, but I decided these were bad enough to get their own slide.

The two-tone look is pretty risky with basketball uniforms, although I don't think Kansas State could have gotten it any more wrong with this combo. 

UNC vs. Michigan State Camoflauge

Photo via deadspin.com
Photo via deadspin.com

The camo looked ugly up close and also looked possibly worse on television. They wore them to honor our military, which is a great thing, but doesn't change how they looked.

North Carolina's are particularly bad, the light blue just really looks bad with camo.  

The Grey Jersey Trend

Photo via sports.yahoo.com
Photo via sports.yahoo.com

I really dislike these grey uniforms that Nike has been pushing in the last few years. Besides taking away from the team's actual colors, the grey itself just doesn't look very good.

Why make them dreary grey instead of black, which goes better with most secondary hues anyway? A team like Syracuse, for example, has a classic, recognizable orange uniform. Putting them in grey looks worse and takes away from their tradition and brand. 

Look at these—the Kentucky and Florida ones are ugly too. This new trend is bad for the future of college basketball jerseys. Nike is making it about Nike the company and not the universities and their basketball teams. 

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