KU practices on glass court at Big 12 Tournament. Bill Self says it’s different
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- KU practiced at T‑Mobile Center to get a short session on the ASB GlassFloor.
- Players said the LED floor lacked Allen Fieldhouse traction; they moistened shoes.
- Self discussed LED visuals, indicating he’s traditionalist.
Taking advantage of the University of Kansas’ close proximity to T-Mobile Center, the Kansas Jayhawks held a short practice Monday in downtown Kansas City, site of the Big 12 men’s basketball tournament, which for KU starts late Thursday night.
“I actually spoke to people that have been there, and they said they thought it was in our best interest to do that,” KU coach Bill Self said on Monday’s Hawk Talk radio show.
In Self’s eyes, the importance of the practice had everything to do with the state-of-the-art ASB GlassFloor with embedded LED video technology that the Big 12 is using for the women’s and men’s postseason tourneys. The floor consists of panels of laminated safety glass with a specially treated surface for traction.
“We get over there and the eight teams that are playing tomorrow (Tuesday’s first round) also came over early to do the same thing that we did,” Self said of squads anxious to work out on the floor.
“This was our only chance, because tomorrow there’s games all day,” Self continued. “There are no practice times. On Wednesday there are games all day, so there’s no practice times. And then on Thursday, we play games all day long, so no practice times. This was our opportunity.
“Fortunately, we’re close enough — K-State would be the only school that would be close enough, probably to come in a day early to do something like that, and I think they get a practice time (Monday) regardless — but I just felt like we should take advantage of it.”
Self explained that “we only got 30 minutes, but we went for 30 minutes there and then we moved it upstairs to the College Basketball Experience and finished practice on the court up there. So it worked out really well.”
So what were the Jayhawks’ players and coaches findings regarding the court, which is designed to display real-time graphics, animations and custom branding?
“The thing that I would be most concerned about, from what the players told me, and there’s courts like this all across America ... some of them have unbelievable traction and that kind of stuff, and some of them are a little slippery,” Self said. “This one doesn’t have the same traction as what our floor here does (at Allen Fieldhouse).
“So you’ll see a lot of guys going to the bottom of the shoes in some way, shape or form during all the timeouts and dead balls and stuff like that (for added traction).”
As far as the concept of the new LED lit court?
“I’m kind of a traditionalist,” Self said. “The marketing, the playing to the social media crowd and things like that … I understand why you do it. I wish that it was more traditional, but it’s far more traditional to me than what It looked like when I was watching the women’s tournament, because they’re able to change it.
“You know how we have the XII (logo for Big 12)? That’s not on there anymore. They’ve taken things off so it’s cleaner. So when they do add stuff to it, it doesn’t look like it’s too busy, so to speak.”
The Jayhawks will officially head over to Kansas City on Wednesday (after practicing in Lawrence) in advance of their late Thursday quarterfinal game against either TCU, Oklahoma State or Colorado, set for an 8:30 p.m. tip.
“We play Thursday the late game, which says 8:30, but how many times do games actually run on time? So probably an 8:30, 8:45 start, and then if you’re fortunate enough to win, you flip it and you do the same thing the next game (Friday’s 8:30 p.m. semifinal), which hopefully that’ll that’ll be the case. But we’ve got our work cut out.”
