K-Uniform Report: New Basketball Threads

Are the new KU basketball uniforms an upgrade or a downgrade?

Right before your football Jayhawks decided to go out there and win yet again, your basketball Jayhawks made a statement of their own: new home and away uniforms for the 2022-23 season. Kansas has changed a lot of from the uniform set they’ve worn for the past few seasons and the one they won their fourth national title in, so let’s take a look at the details.

as promised, the new threads 🔴🔵 pic.twitter.com/FLYoobXVvH

— Kansas Men’s Basketball (@KUHoops) September 29, 2022

First, if you remember the template from a year ago, you’ll recall simplicity. Stripes around the neck and a few at the bottom of the shorts and that was it for trim. A Jayhawk on both sides of the shorts and that’s about it. Sure, the original rules of the game were lightly scrolled down the side of the jersey, but you couldn’t see them up close. These uniforms add a lot more color.

The most obvious is the side paneling which goes from the armpit to the bottom of the shorts. The home whites have blue paneling outlined in red and the away blues have white with the same red outline. A Jayhawk is situated at the bottom on both. I would’ve preferred that the blue jerseys change up the paneling and make red dominant, but that’s just nitpicking and mainly because I think they’d make a great semi homage to the mid nineties red and white paneling that Paul Pierce and company wore for a few years. The chevron details within the panels are a nice detail however. Overall, these look good.

My one overall complaint is the neck piping which feels incomplete. But these uniform sets make up for that with the waistband. Both sets feature a central thick red stripe with thinner white and blue stripes on either side. It’s a great look.

One more awesome detail is one you’ll only see this year and that is the 125 years of basketball patch on the right shoulder. It looks great, but KU already wears a Big XII and American flag patches on the left, so it could get a little busy, especially come tournament time when the NCAA adds another patch on there as if you don’t know what you’re spending your time watching. Anyway, we’ll see how that looks when the time comes.

Overall, I’m a fan. Would I like to see the paneling reversed on the blues? Sure. Might it get a little clustered in March? Maybe. But overall, it looks like Kansas and feels like Kansas and when it’s all said and done, that’s what’s important.