Maize jerseys on the road?

Submitted by Wolverine Devotee on

Has there been a change in NCAA rules?

As recent as last year, Michigan wore Maize for big road games (sparty, IU etc.)

This season, Michigan has only worn their road Blue uniforms. I began to take notice of this after I was going to wear my Maize until I saw a photo of pregame before the UW and sparty road games.

Also, it appears that we have seen the end of the 2012-13 - 2013-14 home White unis since of the uniforms(z) announced for the postseason. After all, since Michigan has gotten adidas, their uniform design changes every 2 years.

Will be kind of strange to see Michigan wear Maize in second & third round games.

2Blue4You

March 7th, 2014 at 8:23 AM ^

I think the maize jerseys are "Big Game" uniforms but really the discretion of JB or even the captains.  My take is that we have arrived in basketball and don't need the extra hype of the jerseys and we happen to like the true color scheme of the road blues, therefore wear them as much as we can.  

The whites are my least favorites and I would have to imagine the team feels the same way.  

mGrowOld

March 7th, 2014 at 8:38 AM ^

Someday LSA2000 needs to put his analytical powers to work and look at the various board topic themes that seem to dominate discussion these days.  It would be interesting to look and see how the board evolves during periods of uncertainty (last days of Rich, Borges and our running game) vs times of joy (last year's basketball tourny rn & 2011 football season) and compare that to the relatively quiet times we're in right now.

Off the top of my head I would say the three topics that seeming are ALWAYS on the board somewhere at all times are the following (in no particular order):

1. PosBang threads

2. Drinking threads

3. Uniform threads

These things seem to consume us and I dont for the life of me know why.

jmdblue

March 7th, 2014 at 8:49 AM ^

Whatever power it is that defines trends will eventually bring us back to muted colors over the current near-neons.  When that happens (and 2 years later when DB realizes it happened), we will have an opportunity to have really cool actual maize jerseys with actual maize in the helmet... Will look very cool.

stephenrjking

March 7th, 2014 at 11:06 AM ^

Michigan has never had a completely consistent "maize" color, and attempts to fix things or revert them do not help. Back in "the day," or the 1990s/early 2000s for people my age, Michigan had one color of "maize" for football and another for basketball/hockey uniforms. I have authentic jerseys of the era to prove it. Hockey helmets, however, matched football and did not match the maize of the jerseys.
And while they have (mistakenly, in my opinion) darkened the hockey helmets, the problem persists.
The one thing I don't want to see is a move to the orange-ish yellow that used to be common on apparel but has never been a working color on the actual teams. I've seen people advocate that move, and I worry that this is what they mean. But then they could just be referring to the 90s era maize of basketball/hockey unis as contrasted with both the football colors of the time and the lightning color that is used in places now, I'm not sure.

Evil Empire

March 7th, 2014 at 8:57 AM ^

The maize-on-maize look (home vs OSU and MSU last year) was not a good one, it made the text illegible.  OSU played along by having a dumb jersey idea of their own, the "BUCKEYES" on everybody's name panel.  That's in the same zone as all the guys named Freedom and Service on the AFA football team.  But I digress.

The regular maize ones we wore during the tourney last year were tops.  That we couldn't get any other uniforms due to a supply issue (lol adidas) was weird but at least they had some of our best-looking unis.  I find the replacement of MICHIGAN by WOLVERINES across the front a bit jarring, but otherwise it's okay. 

michchi85

March 7th, 2014 at 9:27 AM ^

I was surprised they didn't wear the maize for the State game on the road.  I wasn't aware of any rule changes, but maybe they are just saving the maize for big home games only.  I think we will only see maize and white for the rest of the year though, since we will be the home team for the rest of the BTT and the first few rounds of the NCAA Tournament.  Maize from the Sweet 16 onto the National Championship game!

mgoblue78

March 7th, 2014 at 9:28 AM ^

In the old days, when Big 10 games were played Thursday evening and Saturday afternoon, and no other time, (except for a big Sunday matinee game on national TV once a season or so), it was Blue on the road and White at home, with Maize reserved for a big home game (like that once-a-season Sunday game).

It is my understanding that Maize as a road uniform is OK if the home team is wearing white. Back in the days of black and white tv, that probably wouldn't have been allowed because there would not have been sufficient contrast for viewers to make out the difference between the teams.

As a sidenote, B&W TV is the basic reason for the white vs dark uniform regulations in the first place. The regulations were imposed for the benefit of TV viewers who couldn't distinguish two differently colored uniforms.    With color TV being universal, the regulations are archaic....hence the interesting sidebar the past few years with UCLA and USC talking deliberate offsetting penalties at the start of each half so they can wear their blue and red football uniforms, respectively rather than the "away" team wearing white.

I still find it a bit disconcerting that Michigan wears the Maize uniform routinely instead of White at home, but I'm an old curmugeon.

Now, get off my lawn.

 

 

stephenrjking

March 7th, 2014 at 11:00 AM ^

The rules haven't changed. College basketball actually allows a lot of latitude in what teams wear, as long as there is contrast (and occasionally even when there isn't). Recall the title game run that Illinois made last year where they wore orange almost every game home and road.
One reason maize became so common last year was that the base road uniform was shelved after the jersey-tear fiasco at Minnesota. Following that game, Michigan rotated maize with various alternate and old versions of blue to keep things going.
Michigan will likely wear the maize tournament jerseys throughout the B1G tournament, since they are the top seed. Hopefully they'll make it deep enough in the NCAAs to play some higher seeds and we can see what they do there.

Mr. Yost

March 7th, 2014 at 11:47 AM ^

I believe we'd just lost in our Maize so we didn't wear them on the road @ MSU.

We can wear them as long as there is a contrast.

You can even wear white on the road or blue at home if you want. A lot of schools do this when they have their "red out" (or whatever color) type games.

Snow Sucks

March 7th, 2014 at 12:26 PM ^

What I think they do is blue for away, maie for big/important home games, and white for all the other home games. They should scrap the white, make blue the hom uniform, and maize the away.

mscharbo15

March 7th, 2014 at 3:30 PM ^

Well, the undefeated movement is certainly aided by the fact that we only wear white at home against teams we should beat anyway.

I have no inside info, but I wouldn't be surprised to see us wear white in the first BTT game and in the first two rounds of the NCAAs. I don't think these new 'Wolverine' threads are mandatory; the blue one probably won't even see the light of day. 

Along those lines, it's worth noting that last year's 'Made in March' uniform only appeared in one game (Wisconsin BTT). If I had to guess, we'll wear the maize 'Wolverine' jerseys when we (presumably) play Iowa or Nebraska in the BTT semifinals and that will be that.