Are all courts wood?

[EarlJam]

Regarding basketball courts in college and the pros, are they all made of wood? Do they have to be? Does anyone know? Football and baseball have differing turfs. If a school wanted to put in a hard rubber court or another type of surface, could they? Are there restrictions?

Curious minds want to know.

-EarlJam

[DU82]

Regarding basketball courts in college and the pros, are they all made of wood? Do they have to be? Does anyone know? Football and baseball have differing turfs. If a school wanted to put in a hard rubber court or another type of surface, could they? Are there restrictions?

Curious minds want to know.

-EarlJam

NC State's floor used to be the hard rubber type (similar to what used to be in the IM Building on West Campus; not sure what's in there now.) About the same time as the unitards!

[EarlJam]

My God. The Unitards. I had nearly and thankfully forgotten. Thanks for opening up a fresh wound.

-EarlJam

[mph]

A picture for those who don't remember.

[Uncle Drew]

Most are wood or composite wood with a finish. Think polished beaver board. However having played in high school and college (bench warmer) a lot of any courts' performance has to do with the material underneath the wood. Everyone has seen a court over an ice skating rink sweat and get slippery on TV. The ideal court has a thin padding under the wood, but many poorer universities cheap out and put the wood right on top of the concrete. Any player can tell the difference when they land after jumping or dive for a loose ball because the floor doesn't give at all. You don't want a floor of astroturf or silly-putty but a really hard court really jars your ankles legs and spinal column.

[UKBOO]

^^
I've played on just about every kind of floor as well. The rubberized floor did not have a very good reaction while dribbling, but players had quite a spring off of it.
The floor in Memorial (Lexington) was the first of it's kind, as far as I can tell. A pit was created. If I remember right, layers of gravel, sand, then cork were laid down. The floor was placed on this. Rupp wanted a floor that had lots of bounce and spring. The by-product was, the floor is STILL in place. They are just now thinking of replacing it.
I have also played on a carpet floor. It was MUCH easier on the joints, but players tend to trip easier, the ball did not seem to bounce true, and rug burns were a problem. I like it now, though, since I am a little older..

[CMS2478]

I play in a church basketball league and the court is carpet. I hate the way the ball bounces and forget diving for loose balls, that carpet-burn is crucial!!!

[DU82]

My God. The Unitards. I had nearly and thankfully forgotten. Thanks for opening up a fresh wound.

-EarlJam

Sorry 'bout that! I recall that a women's professional league around the same time wore similar uniforms, but without the baggy shorts.

Back to floors for a moment, if I recall correctly, the Chavis Heights rec facility in Raleigh (home of the summer league of the same name) has, or hopefully had, either vinyl or linoleum tile as the floor. Really hard on the knees, since it was right on the concrete. (Played in an employee league for a year or two, or more accurately, sat on the bench.)

[LetItBD08]

I recall that a women's professional league around the same time wore similar uniforms, but without the baggy shorts.

The Australian Women's National Team wore this type of uniform when they exhibitioned against the US National Team in Cameron in September.

They looked like they were straight out of Cool Runnings. We got the "Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on up, its bobsled time!" chant going during free throws.

Here's a random picture of one of the players in that uniform:
http://godsofsport.com/wp-content/up...20Harrower.jpg

[Uncle Drew]

Back to floors for a moment, if I recall correctly, the Chavis Heights rec facility in Raleigh (home of the summer league of the same name) has, or hopefully had, either vinyl or linoleum tile as the floor. Really hard on the knees, since it was right on the concrete. (Played in an employee league for a year or two, or more accurately, sat on the bench.)


Every Elementary school gym has linoleum over concrete in their gyms as well as many recreation centers. There is no subtance outside of maybe playing on a diamond surface that is worse to play on. That stuff has absolutely ZERO give and brings new meaning to the term "floor burn". Back in my younger days I could play ten straight games of pick up basketball on a good wood floor. Put us on linoleum and we'd be lucky to play three. It just wears the body down; the ankles and spinal columns in particular. And now having back problems I often wonder if the various playing surfaces haven't contributed to some of my spinal degenetation.

[EarlJam]

The Australian Women's National Team wore this type of uniform when they exhibitioned against the US National Team in Cameron in September.

They looked like they were straight out of Cool Runnings. We got the "Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on up, its bobsled time!" chant going during free throws.

Here's a random picture of one of the players in that uniform:
http://godsofsport.com/wp-content/up...20Harrower.jpg

Well, the uniforms look a Hades lot better on the women than they do on Chris Corneateratti! Thanks for the new perspective!

-EarlJam

[UKBOO]

Tile floors are the absolute worst. Not only do they not give, they are either dusty, with no traction, or they have too much traction. I tore my ACL on a tile floor that had been mopped just before we played. I came down, my foot planted, my body turned, my foot stuck to the floor, then the POP.

[thebur]

Wow, thinking about the floor in Chavis Heights takse me back to my tennage years in raleigh!

Those linoleum floors could have been the worst things I ever played on (I don't think I can actually consider the carpet ones courts!). Linoleum, on concrete, yeah that will be super good for people joints in high impact situations like full force stopping from a sprint or landing from a jump!

[mr. synellinden]

This thread made me think that for a long time I have wondered about the floor in Cameron and whether there was something about it that contributed to the rash of broken foot bones that Duke players have seemed to suffer over the years. Has this ever been discussed, mentioned or looked into?

Taking a step back, do Duke players actually suffer more broken feet than what would be considered normal, or does it just seem that way because I am a Duke fan and follow it closely? It's probably the latter, but every time I hear about a foot or ankle injury suffered by a Duke player, I wonder if it could be related to the court.

These are the players I can remember who broke a foot while playing for Duke:

Brand
Love
Boozer
Hurley
Paulus
(others?)

I also found this quote from Coach K from this site (http://www.dukemednews.org/news/article.php?id=9362) while researching this:

Ask Coach K and I think he'll tell you he uses the data points he gets in our testing report to evaluate the players three times a year to dial up or down his practices," said Claude T. Moorman, M.D., director of sports medicine at Duke. "He really gets a barometer of where they are so they can peak in March, which is really when we want the guys going full speed."

An example of the benefits of the K Lab occurred two seasons ago when it was discovered that Duke starting guard Daniel Ewing showed early signs of a stress fracture in his ankle.

"We were able to sort out a lot of the forces that are coming to play to create that injury," Moorman explained. "That allows us to design better footwear, better orthotics in the shoes, to stabilize that portion of the foot."

Added Krzyzewski: "If we didn't go through all this testing, he would have broken his foot and he would have been lost for the whole season, and we would have been lost for the whole season also."

Interesting.

[pamtar]

The court I played on growing up during rec league was a comprised of a plastic grid like this #. If you fell wrong you could tear little square chunks out of your knee. I remember playing tic-tac-toe on one guy's scars. This is the same court where Dominique first dunked a basketball at age 11. I could 'get the rim' at age 18.