PRO: Look fresh, play fresh

The Arizona men’s basketball team has a new business-like attitude going into this season after it failed to meet expectations in its last. It has a new assistant coach, some new players and a new wardrobe fresher than Rocky Mountain air.

Introduced last March, the Nike stitches have several benefits. They are designed for the hardest working ballers, made without sleeves to lessen distractions when shooting and with a torso that’s 10 inches shorter than last season’s tops. The tighter the fit, the more mobility a player has.

The colors have been slightly modified as well. No, Arizona hasn’t gone purple, but it’s certainly a new style of red, white and blue. The team sported the new uniforms in blue March 8 versus Oregon in the Staples Center in the quarterfinals of the Pacific 10 Conference tournament, but it’s the all-whites that stand out the most. The plain white is bold, like the smile of a Crest model, and it’s fresher and cleaner than Outkast.

But that doesn’t mean the Wildcats have subtracted any team spirit or tradition by cutting out some accent colors. The jerseys still have the team name across the front, the same block “”A”” circle at the apex of the v-neck and still boast the American flag above the left breast. If anything, these jerseys put the spotlight on what’s important.

It’s scientifically proven – or hypothetically thought ð-ÿthat a better-dressed person or group performs at a greater level. The new jerseys the Wildcats don – joining Syracuse, Ohio State and Florida, which also switched to the new Nike twills – are the new business attire. The clock is punched; the suits are on. Now it’s game time.

Too bad they don’t have a collar to pop.

-Lance Madden
assistant sports editor

CON: ‘Fresh’? Well, that all depends

If you want to get technical with the word “”fresh,”” the men’s basketball team’s new jerseys wouldn’t be fresh for long.

Going down the list of definitions for the word on dictionary.com, I can see many cases where the new men’s basketball jerseys would not be considered fresh.

The jerseys would be newly made and recently arrived, which would make them fresh for only one game. They are, however, previously known – Ohio State, Syracuse and Florida have the same style jerseys.

The new unis will most definitely not be fresh when they get salty after the players sweat in them. They aren’t “”retaining their original properties unimpaired,”” as the old jerseys are now just that, old jerseys.

As far as I know, jerseys aren’t preserved by freezing or canning, although I guess one could argue they are preserved through drying.

It isn’t until the Web site’s eighth definition of “”fresh”” that the jerseys would be fresh for an extended period of time – jerseys aren’t capable of being tired or fatigued. They aren’t faded or worn because the season hasn’t started yet.

No uni looks youthful and healthy, or can be pure, cool or refreshing. They also can’t denote a young wine or be moderately strong or brisk. The jerseys are inexperienced, though, as mentioned above.

Jerseys aren’t informal or presumptuous and most certainly didn’t recently give birth to a cow. In terms of the jerseys being exciting, appealing and great – no, no and no.

I’ve never been excited by looking at a jersey – maybe the player wearing it, but not the jersey itself. The new unis aren’t appealing, either. They have Duct-tape-like racing stripes on the back and optical illusion style piping on the shorts. As for great, I’d say averaging a 14-point loss (at the Pac-10 and NCAA tournaments) while wearing those unis isn’t great.

-Brian Kimball
sports writer