When the University of Oregon’s Matthew Knight Arena opens in 66 days, the new crown jewel of the Eugene campus will boast perhaps the most unique imagery ever applied to a basketball court.
Developed by Nike design guru Tinker Hatfield — after all, Nike boss Phil Knight has long been the university’s chief athletic benefactor — the arena’s wood flooring features a trippy, inverse perspective that makes it appear as if you’re looking up through a grove of fir trees.
Weighing more than 22 tons and made up of 225 interlocked panels, the basketball court is more jigsaw puzzle than anything, and even contains some Oregon-centric Easter eggs up where it says Kilkenny Floor.”
Graphic 1 (left side) depicts Morrow County and Heppner, Ore., where Pat Kilkenny grew up. Graphic 2, which symbolizes his education at UO, is the 1970’s interlocking UO logo adorned with three shamrocks representative of his very green and very Irish heritage. Graphic 3 symbolizes the beach and sunset of San Diego, where he became a highly successful entrepreneur and still resides today.
As a finishing touch, the phrase “Deep in the Woods” is located below the Matt Arena logo. These words embody the intimidation the venue will pose for visiting teams, and add soul to the building.
How much “soul” the flooring adds to Ducks basketball remains to be seen, but the effort to install such a one-of-a-kind surface was undoubtedly massive. The graphics (done by Idaho-based United Service) took more than 2,500 man-hours to complete and required some 2 miles of stenciling material in order to lay the graphics down properly.
Said Hatfield: “If you’re part of the opposing team, you ought to dread coming there.”
Image: University of Oregon
Follow us on Twitter at @erikmal and @wiredplaybook, and on Facebook.
In the history of football trick plays, this gotcha play by 
With only a handful of events left in our October Madness beer tournament — and yes, we realize it’s November — some patterns have started to emerge. One is that dark beers haven’t fared as well as we thought they would. And two, IPAs have fast been going the way of the 
Now that October Madness is progressing into the later rounds, the stakes ratchet up with every head-to-head tasting. Although, it nowhere near approaches the pressure facing players on the San Francisco Giants and Texas Rangers as they battle it out in the 
How They Fared: Black Butte Porter has been a longtime favorite among Wired staff, so we were understandably a little nervous about bringing it out to the masses to see what others might think. Fortunately, Black Butte gained a few fans Wednesday night as well. “How could you not like the Black Butte?” said Colin Dixon, an office manager for the 
; ?>/images/envelope.gif){kind=small}
