Big 12 to swap out LED glass court for hardwood floor at basketball tournament

KANSAS CITY — The Big 12’s LED floor just glitched out permanently. 

Commissioner Brett Yormark made the decision late Thursday night to make a drastic switch before Friday’s Big 12 Tournament semifinals. The controversial glass floor is gone and a traditional hardwood court is being brought in and installed overnight.

Yormark gave CBS Sports this statement: “After consultation with the coaches of our four semifinal teams, I have decided that in order to provide our student-athletes with the greatest level of comfort on a huge stage this weekend, we will transition to a hardwood court for the remainder of the tournament. We look forward to a great semifinals and championship game.”

No. 1 seed Arizona will face No. 5 Iowa State at 7 p.m. ET and No. 2 seed Houston will take on No. 3 seed Kansas afterward in the semifinals of the Big 12 Tournament on Friday.

“We have a tremendous final four tomorrow night,” Yormark told CBS Sports. “That should be the story.”

The commissioner began preparing for the possibility of a change midday Thursday, after an obvious increase in slippage during the Texas Tech-Iowa State game. Red Raiders All-Big 12 guard Christian Anderson was injured midway through the second half of Tech’s loss to Iowa State, though Anderson said afterward the injury wasn’t serious and he expects to recover soon. 

The ensuing Arizona vs. UCF game on Thursday didn’t seem to have an abnormal amount of sliding, but an uptick in slips was also evident in Houston’s win over BYU on Thursday night. The mid-tournament decision to change the playing surface is unprecedented in college athletics, but also representative of Yormark’s willingness to not be stubborn at all costs. He was always open to this possibility and wasn’t going to resist if the coaches and players wanted the change. The league’s choice to play its tournament on an LED glass floor drew equal parts intrigue and criticism, but players saying the playing surface was slippery was becoming a common complaint.   

“It’s pretty bad,” Wildcats forward Taj Manning said. “It’s a bad floor. They shouldn’t bring it back.”

Yormark was sure to have conversations with all four coaches playing in Friday’s semifinals — Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd, Iowa State’s TJ Otzelberger, Houston’s Kelvin Sampson and Kansas’ Bill Self — and the coaches consented with and endorsed the idea of changing the playing surface for the three biggest games remaining in the tournament.

After noting the injury to Anderson and acknowledging the delicate nature of his own star Darryn Peterson’s season-long availability concerns, Self told CBS Sports that changing the hardwood was “the right thing to do.” 

Otzelberger, whose team has already won twice on the LED floor, told CBS Sports he was open and fully committed to playing on the glass floor if that’s what Yormark would’ve decided. 

“I think commissioner Yormark’s intent was to broaden the scope, think outside the box and that was probably the right decision. And I’m sure after what the narrative is now, he’ll make the right decision,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. “If this was a concert tonight and we had a game tomorrow, no different than that. … Nobody had an advantage or disadvantage, but I think for our league, he’ll make the right decision.”

The change is not expected to be a logistical issue; the Big 12 always had a backup plan to call in a crew and install the hardwood court in case of an emergency, sources said. The changeover began shortly after Thursday night’s final game between Kansas and TCU and will be installed and ready to go in the morning for teams to participate in their customary day-of-game shootarounds.