TicketsToday we're thrilled to unveil the uniforms Cincinnati men's basketball will wear on February 3rd's Throwback Night against Memphis, which tips off at 7 p.m. at Fifth Third Arena. If you want to be in attendance to see the uniforms in person, you can grab tickets here. The Bearcats will also wear throwbacks in the final home game of the 2021-22 season on February 26th against South Florida. Tickets to that game can be purchased here.
We worked hard to make this feel special, so we wanted to share some behind-the-scenes details on how this came about. Here's the backstory on how we brought "The Cats" (back) to life.
Any coach who takes a new job arrives with a checklist of things to accomplish immediately.
For men's basketball head coach Wes Miller, some were obvious:
- Forge a bond with the student-athletes he inherited.
- Recruit the ones in the transfer portal.
- Find some transfers to fill in the gaps.
- Build a staff to guide his first season in Cincinnati.
However, some of these tasks were less obvious: How can we quickly and economically give the locker room a facelift? (The answer: Big, beautiful vinyl decals.) How can we introduce––and re-introduce––the upcoming season's roster to the fan base? (Quick "mixtapes" for each player on the team.)
The last one was more interesting: Can we get an additional uniform? Something to energize recruits and fans. Something different than what we've already got. Maybe something with a script. Maybe a throwback.
Turning around a new uniform on short notice isn't an easy task. These things are typically handled well in advance and preferably without the current knots in the world's supply chain. However, challenges are always welcomed when they're this fun. And besides, we had the perfect uniform in mind.
Pull any fan out of the stands at Fifth Third Arena, ask them about the storied history of Cincinnati Bearcats basketball, and you'll receive anecdotes about two eras.
In the late '50s and early '60s, head coach George Smith and a kid from Indianapolis named Oscar Robertson quickly built the foundation for Cincinnati basketball as we know it. In 1960 Robertson wrapped up his senior season and was chosen with the #1 overall pick in the NBA Draft, and Smith, fresh off a pair of Final Four appearances, stepped away from coaching. In came head coach Ed Jucker to fulfill the promise of Smith's tenure. Jucker quickly won consecutive national championships for the Bearcats, cementing Cincinnati as one of the first dynasties in college basketball.
In 1989, Cincinnati hired a coach from the University of Akron named Bob Huggins. Huggins came to Clifton charged with the task of revitalizing a once-great program that had languished for more than a decade, bottoming out at a dismal 3-25 record earlier in the '80s. It didn't take long for Huggins to accomplish his goal. The Bearcats returned to the Final Four in just his third season at the helm, embarking on a run of dominance that lasted more than ten years, re-elevating Cincinnati to the center of the college hoops universe.
So much of Cincinnati basketball's winning history occurs within those two windows. But not all of it does.
Look down the list of seasons in our 121-year history, and you'll find an interesting outlier. Sitting in the gulf between NCAA Tournament appearances in 1966 and 1992 is the Gale Catlett era. The team made a return to the AP Poll in 1973-74 and a return to the big dance in 1974-75.
They're the Bearcats that time forgot, and they wore the most fun uniforms in program history.
THE PROCESS
A common misconception is that every athletic department has a well-maintained archive of its history. While we wish this were true (and sometimes it is), there is just too much turnover for it to be realistic. Think of all the buildings UC Athletics has occupied in the last 50 years. Think of the number of staff members who have passed through those buildings. Lots of history just isn't documented, at least not well enough for it to be ready-made for rebirth in 2022.
Put simply, we didn't have fancy vector files for any of this stuff from the mid-'70s. The Cats were gone, and we had to rebuild them.
Once we located some old yearbooks, media guides, and photos, creative director Dan Phillips got to work re-drawing the script logo that adorns the front of the '70s uniforms. Then we had to nail down the jersey numbers, and they had to be accurate. Look how weird that "5" is!
(For the record, NCAA uniform regulations mandate that jersey numbers are centered. It's the same reason the 1991-92 throwbacks from a few years ago featured centered numbers rather than the historically accurate offset ones worn by Nick Van Exel's team. Unfortunately, not everything can be perfect.)
The shorts feature a Bearcat, though slightly different from the version that exists in the Vintage Vault logo library we do have. Phillips had to customize that to make it accurate.
Once everything was built and fit in an existing Under Armour jersey template, we sent the design off to two separate vendors to be customized in time for AAC play this month.
THE PRESENTATION
This would all be a little boring if we just made new jerseys, right? We don't get to work on these projects every year, so we wanted to do it justice with the creative presentation.
So much of what we've spent the last seven months working on won't be revealed until game day. Stay tuned to @GoBearcats and @GoBearcatsMBB on social media, and grab your tickets to see even more in-venue touches. Once the cat (pun intended) is out of the bag, we'll circle back and add those pieces here. Until then, without spoiling some of the fun to come, here are some historic elements that inspired our forthcoming game presentation:
While changing the court design for unique games isn't feasible, we still wanted those assets at our disposal, so Phillips warped some old photos to get a better angle to recreate that awesome center court cat, complete with little paw prints.
The team wore "The Cats" at the very end of Armory Fieldhouse's life as a basketball venue, so it felt appropriate to pay homage to that old scoreboard. Despite not having hosted a men's basketball game in nearly 46 years, it still hangs in the north end of the Fieldhouse. Look for this wall to make an appearance on social media and the arena's video boards.
Armory Fieldhouse, which opened in 1954, did not feature press amenities like you'll find in the arenas of today. Above the upper deck bleachers on the east and west side of the arena are simple desks for working media, emblazoned on the front with "CINCINNATI" and "BEARCATS." Keep your eyes peeled on February 3rd for these press boxes to make a symbolic reapperance:
Nothing says '70s sports like print media. So much of our inspiration was taken directly from ads the department ran during the decade. After a deep dive into Newspapers.com, we came back with "Bearcatty in Cincinnati." It was a UC marketing campaign started in 1976 to stimulate attendance at Bearcats football games but more importantly to promote men's basketball's move from Clifton's Armory Fieldhouse to downtown's Riverfront Coliseum. While "The Cats" uniforms and "Bearcatty in Cincinnati" were, in reality, separated by a year, it felt like a good place for some artistic license.
Read our conversation with Tom Humes, a 1971 UC graduate and a member of the marketing team that launched the Bearcatty Campaign in 1976.
Here's where we got some of the language and illustrations you'll see next month:
This was also where we drew inspiration from for our initial teaser in December:
— Cincinnati Bearcats (@GoBEARCATS) December 14, 2021The Video For today's uniform reveal video we snagged Ody Oguama, Jarrett Hensley, and Mike Saunders Jr. and battled the dusty bleachers in the upper deck of Armory Fieldhouse, which is still hidden away in the center of UC's campus. Shooting in front of the old press boxes gave us a classic Bearcats basketball backdrop, and one that fans haven't seen in decades.
The song, by British band Bad Company, was recorded in November 1973, just before the Bearcats took the floor as "The Cats" for the first time in a 65-58 upset over #9 Louisville at Freedom Hall to open the 1973-74 season.
The Gear As part of our creative process we presented an extensive selection of apparel designs to our partners. A couple pieces have already been released to retail and can be purchased at shop.gobearcats.com today! We hope more of these will start to trickle out beginning in February:
Thanks to the tireless work of assistant director of Olympic sports equipment Andy Frigge, we were able to condense an 18-month process into just seven months, making these uniforms a possibility in Wes Miller's first season. Unfortunately, replica jerseys will not be sold, simply because it wasn't possible. Our turnaround time––especially for a uniform with this level of customization––is very uncommon and doesn't allow our apparel partners enough time to bring replica jerseys to market.
Fans desperate to get their hands on "The Cats" will have an opportunity to bid on authentic uniforms at the Red & Black Gala this spring. Supply will be very limited. More details will be announced as they are finalized.