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Iowa State Big 12 Championship Rings Pay Homage to Popular COVID-era Video Game
En route to a No. 2 seed and an Elite Eight showing in the 2024 March Madness tournament, the Iowa State men's basketball team hoisted a Big 12 trophy after they won their conference tournament.
Those tournaments have a tendency to be quickly forgotten with the hype of the big tournament following so quickly, but the Cyclones have immortalized their achievement with rings for the players that feature a whole bunch of interesting nods and Easter eggs.
Most of the references and inscriptions on the rings are self-explanatory. The face features a throwback Iowa State logo. "BIG 12 CHAMPIONS" is carved into the halo. One side features the score of the final game against Houston, and the other features the name and number of the receiving player.
It’s All in the Details. 💍#Cyclones | #C5C pic.twitter.com/LpztgtWNJL
— Iowa State Men’s Basketball (@CycloneMBB) August 26, 2024
Then, inside the ring, it gets a little weird. It starts off normal, with an inscription honoring the season.
"29 WINS" and "23-0 AT HOME" are inscribed honoring the success of the season.
Then it says "SEND CODE!" and has a cartoon astronaut character from the multi-player co-operative game "Among Us" that was popular during the pandemic. Both are references to the game, which the school says the team used, "as a bonding piece on road trips throughout the season."
Some may scoff at the reference to an ephemerally popular game on what is supposed to be a lasting memento, but in a few decades, each of these players will be able to quickly glance at this fine piece of jewelry and remember exactly what those road trips were like. That's what they're for, after all, right?
Josh Wilson is the news director of the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI in 2024, he worked for FanSided in a variety of roles, most recently as senior managing editor of the brand’s flagship site. He has also served as a general manager of Sportscasting, the sports arm of a start-up sports media company, where he oversaw the site’s editorial and business strategy. Wilson has a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from SUNY Cortland and a master’s in accountancy from the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. He loves a good nonfiction book and enjoys learning and practicing Polish. Wilson lives in Chicago but was raised in upstate New York. He spent most of his life in the Northeast and briefly lived in Poland, where he ate an unhealthy amount of pastries for six months.