On Saturday evening, without any hype or prior announcement, the Indiana Hoosiers basketball team debuted a new set of black uniforms. This was the second alternate uniform the Hoosiers have worn this year (in February, the team wore Black History uniforms against UCLA).
The team was also supposed to wear their 2025 “Fear of God” alternates, but backed out at the last minute. It was later explained why they ditched the FOG unis.
Interestingly, the black alternates the team wore on Saturday evening were not the first set of BFBS uniforms they ever sported. Ironically, in 2024, the team wore black Fear of God uniforms without incident.
So it was interesting timing that the Hoosiers busted out these new uniforms without any fanfare, and on the road to boot. Here’s a couple looks at the new unis, and then a video of them in action.
The Indiana connection. 🫡 pic.twitter.com/grrui7Hnry
— Indiana Basketball (@IndianaMBB) March 2, 2025
I’m not particularly a fan of any BFBS uniforms, but these also suffer from some visibility issues — the script “Indiana” wordmark and uni number are both rendered in crimson, with a fairly thin white outline. It wasn’t that the numbers weren’t readable (especially in tight shots), but the contrast between the red and the black isn’t great, and the white outline almost makes the script and number to have a ghosted appearance.
It looks fine in still form …
… but there’s more than enough crimson on the uni with the stripes and the shorts logo that the Hoosiers didn’t need to give the script and number the red shade. When the Indiana Women wore BFBS uniforms earlier this season, they chose to wear the “Indiana” script and uni numbers in solid white, which looked better.
I do prefer the red logo on the shorts to white, however.
The Men’s Hoops designers should have learned some visibility lessons from the football team.
I do not know, nor did Indiana say, whether these are one-and-done unis, or whether they’ll continue to wear them for the rest of this season (I’d think the latter). The Hoosiers won their Saturday night game against Washington (78-62), so maybe they have some mojo. They continue their west coast B1G swing tonight when they play the Ducks in Oregon — so we could see them again as soon as tonight. After that, the Hoosiers finish their regular season with a home game against THE Ohio State.
What do you think of the new BFBS uniforms? And more specifically, what do you think of the uniforms strictly as a uniform?
IU needs to move on from this script, it feels 90s. Traditional font script looks better in my opinion
I’m an IU alum. Most others I talk to really like the script Indiana and wish it was used more.
Take this with a massive grain of salt, but the Reddit College Basketball community is lukewarm on these uniforms while wishing for a white version with red script/numbers (and maybe NOB. FWIW, I’m not opposed to NOB on IU shirts despite others feeling that the sky will fall).
Brutal.
Can we stop with this “BFBS” thing? Every team has a white uniform; black is just as legitimate as white as a neutral-color background for the team’s primary/secondary colors to appear on.
They’re never going to give up their clever little catchphrases.
I’ve been cringing at ‘softball top’ for a couple decades.
I’ve been told for years that the reason why teams resort to BFBS – and what makes it so disgusting – is that it’s driven by jersey sales. Mind you, no evidence has ever been provided to support this statement, but that’s what I’ve been told.
Do Indiana Hoosiers really sell that many basketball jerseys? Do any colleges? Who is buying these jerseys? And what about the countless examples of teams that have been declared to have succumbed to the temptations of BFBS and yet the team in question doesn’t sell any merch?
Excellent point regarding the actual revenue generated from college jersey sales. I was thinking about that just this week in terms of college baseball teams having multiple hats and uniforms. Most of those “official” hats and jerseys are either very hard to find or not available to the general public. That’s definitely a big difference from the pro teams who have huge revenue prospects for each uniform variation.
BFFS
I still do not think black is an IU school color but these look good. I do not mind the red script with white outline, the all white script looks more like practice gear. For a road uniform it is fine but never wear these at home, Hoosiers.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the legibility of the red numbers, and it looks way better than the white example that is provided as comparison in this piece.
I might be in the minority here, but I like these.