Adidas Unveils Soulless Uniforms & Sneakers for NCAA Teams

NCAA basketball programs sponsored by adidas are debuting dreadful new uniforms and sneakers.

With the football season in the rearview mirror and the NBA on its All-Star break, many casual sports fans are tuning into college basketball for the first time to complete a little due diligence ahead of next month's March Madness.

Capitalizing on the moment, adidas has chosen this week to start rolling out new apparel, uniforms, and sneakers for two of its NCAA partner schools. The new gear was designed in collaboration with Jerry Lorenzo of the fashion brand Fear of God and will be launched with the Indiana Hoosiers and Miami Hurricanes.

Fans of the adidas-sponsored schools have been inundated with videos ranging from cryptic uniform unveilings to amazing reactions of players getting hyped to unbox and try on the new threads.

The adidas x FoG Indiana Hoosiers basketball jersey / @adidasHoops

The important thing is the kids seem to like it, and that is who this is geared towards. But anyone old enough to rent a car probably made the same disgusted face that Clint Eastwood did in the movie Gran Torino.

Also, the most newsworthy part of this story is that the first of three performance basketball shoes from the collaboration are already being worn on the hardwood—the FoG Athletics x Adidas Basketball 1. The first colorway of the shoes launched in December and is hovering around the retail price on sneaker resale websites. 

Future colorways and release dates remain as mysterious as the brand's shadowy campaign pictures. Judging by the sneakers we see on the court, most colorways will continue the dreary theme of Kanye West Lorenzo's work.

Adidas x FOG sneakers / USA Today Network

The new gear is objectively bad. Mainly because there are no unique factors or storytelling. Adidas could have just as easily switched Indiana out for another one of its schools with the same colors, like the Nebraska Cornhuskers or the North Carolina State Wolfpack, and no one would know the difference. 

Fans love college sports because of the tradition and paegentry, so why drain that out of the arena before the game ever tips off? The uniforms and sneakers are part of the "design language" of Lorenzo and Fear of God. But a post-apocalyptic aesthetic does not belong on the basketball court; we have the upcoming presidential election for that (we kid, it's going to be great).

The real answer is that minimalism has slowly crept into every facet of modern design: architecture, logos, fashion, and sneakers. Adidas has largely done a commendable job of bucking the trend and going with louder designs. But the new collaboration is another example of less is less.

The Miami Hurricanes' amazing Black History Month uniforms / © Sam Navarro-USA TODAY Sports

It has been a rough week for sports uniforms, primarily thanks to the Nike/Fanatics fiasco playing out in MLB. Adidas has been on a hot streak as of late, but like a frat boy who made a few shots in intramurals, it fell victim to an all-time heat check. 

Then again, the brand has a history of unveiling unpopular uniforms just in time for March Madness. Stay locked into FanNationKicks.com for all your footwear news from the sports world.

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