Courting Controversy

7 days ago

Things are heating up in the college basketball world as the conference tournaments head into their weekend finales. It's been really interesting to see which teams really want to try and claw their way into the national tournament and which ones just don't care. Oregon, I am looking at you... Not that they really had a chance to get into the national tournament anyway, but you never know. It is March after all.

Probably one of the biggest stories of the post season has been happening in the Big 12 conference with their innovative flooring from a company out of Germany called ASB Flooring.

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So basically, the whole floor is one giant LED screen. Well a bunch of LED screens put together to be one big LED screen. It makes sense, and from a tech standpoint, it is pretty awesome, but as they are finding out, it is not without it's caveats. Apparently the floor is a little too slippery, additionally, there was a player who complained that it was giving him migraines. Given those factors, for the remaining games of the Big 12 Conference tournament, they are moving back to traditional hardwood flooring.

I can accept the fact that the texture on the floor might not be the same as wood, but the whole migraine thing seems a bit sketch to me. The lines on the court are a fixed image, so there shouldn't be any movement while the players are playing. The only think I can maybe think of is it might be some kind of refresh rate flicker or something like that. Which usually you don't see with LED monitors, but who knows.

Either way, I have a feeling this isn't the last we will see of this flooring. I have a feeling ASB is already working on perfecting the technology and getting it ready for mainstream. In an earlier story I saw, they claim that the glass flooring is actually easier on joints after landing from a jump, so the benefits are clearly there if they can fix these minor inconveniences.

As I said earlier, we are heading into the make or break rounds of the conference tournaments right now. Teams with the higher seeds are playing some of their first games this weekend and other teams are fighting for their chance to be in the national tournament. Ohio State has been on a good run lately, so their noon game against Michigan will be one to watch. It would be pretty awesome if a team other than Michigan could be the tournament champion this year.

Meanwhile, Michigan State has a late 9 PM game against UCLA in their first game of the tournament tonight. I hope the Spartans can show up and actually make a nice tournament of this. There are also a few other games in the Big Ten today. The Purdue vs. Nebraska game at 6:30 PM should be pretty good. I also wouldn't sleep on the Wisconsin vs. Illinois game at 2:30 PM. This is the time of year that multiview in YouTube TV really pays off!

Meanwhile, my niece has some softball games today, and the US team plays Canada at 8:00 PM in the Quarterfinals of the World Baseball Classic. It's going to be a busy day!