Dissecting Auburn Uniforms: Women’s Basketball

Now that I’ve completed an over view of the football, basketball, and baseball uniforms, it’s time to move on and give some other sports some love. Today will be featuring the women’s basketball team’s uniforms. Even if you don’t follow the girl’s team, you’ll want to read about this. There’s a lot more here than you ever could know. Let’s dive in.

To put it simply, the girl’s team’s uniforms have pretty much gone side by side with the men’s team. For as long as Under Armour has provided the uniforms, they’ve been more or less the same thing for each team. Now is when the good stuff comes in. For the 2012 season, the men’s team received their new uniforms that featured the football stripes. Not long after, the girl’s received their own new uniforms that were pretty much the same. Former coach Nell Fortner had the girls fitted for new uniforms that would be a bit more “feminine” that the previous style. Oddly enough, these just coincided with new coach Terri Williams-Flournoy’s hire. Coach Flo apparently saw the new ones when she got to Auburn and immediately hated them. Now, these uniforms were completely different than the old style. These had the “racer back” design, which has the cut of the jersey goes between the shoulder blades. The shorts were also much shorter. So short that the girls’ compression shorts were longer than the uniforms. The girls really hated these. They fit fine on some girls, but others not so much. They only wore these uniforms for two games during an early season tournament. As soon as they got back home they tossed them and went back to the old uniforms. We never even got to see the orange or blue sets!

Design wise, they were pretty good. They are just like the men’s uniforms, except they have the stripes on both sides, and don’t have the odd cuts in the stripes, thankfully. You can also tell that these have the blocked-off v-neck like the rest of Under Armour’s basketball uniforms.

After one more year of wearing older uniforms, the girls received new uniforms once again, this time with a much better cut and design. The cut is back to normal, whereas they fit more as a t-shirt and are looser. The girls just flat out love the new ones. According to Peyton Davis, a senior on the team and a friend of mine, the new uniforms are more comfortable, lighter, and thinner. The old set that was worn for only two games were stiff and didn’t flow well, almost paper-like, according to Peyton.

The design of these newer uniforms are a bit different than the older ones. For starters, the abdomen stripes now have a field of blue (on the whites) on the top and bottom of the stripes. Also, instead of having the stripes down the side of the leg, there is a fairly small stripe that goes around the the back of the shorts that houses the stripes. It’s a little odd, but I like it, especially since it matches the half colored collar. Speaking of the collar, these do not feature the blocked off v-neck, which is a little odd that Under Armour wouldn’t put them on these. The base of the neck piece has the same mini rubber AU block that is on the back of the men’s uniforms. There is a small “TIGERS” at the bottom of the right leg.

To go along with the growing trend of supporting different causes, the Auburn women’s team has worn pink uniforms to support breast cancer awareness. The odd thing about the pink uniforms they wore this season is that they wore them last season. The odd part is that the pink uniforms are the same cut as the new normal uniforms. So the girls got to wear basically the new uniforms nearly a full season before they even got to see the new uniforms!

This is my favorite part- this team is extremely superstitious. For a road game, Coach Flo will decide on either blue or orange for the girls to wear. If they win the game, they continue to wear that color. If they lose, they immediately change to the other color for the next away game. I’ve heard a lot about players being superstitious – right sock/shoe on before the left, same shirt every game, shake hands with everyone in a certain order, etc… – but I’ve not heard a lot about teams as a whole, let alone the coach, being this superstitious.

And that’ll wrap it up for the women’s basketball team. I would like to thank Peyton for helping me out with this post! If you ever get the chance to go watch this team play, go! Coach Flo’s defense is absolutely stiffing and is so much fun to watch (especially for me since I love great defense)!

Stayed tuned here for the next few weeks as I will add a new feature that I’m really excited about! Also, a detailed look at the cheerleaders’ uniforms will be up next week. They have more uniforms than anyone at Auburn!

War Eagle!
+Auburn Athletics