Welcome to this website’s off-season sports sartorial content. We are counting down the world’s top 50 most iconic sports uniforms. Only current uniforms apply, we are not including one-off or alternate uniforms. Let’s stick to the basics.
#28
UCLA Basketball
There will only be a handful of college basketball teams to make our countdown. So far, we’ve included the candy striped pants from Indiana and today we debut our first full basketball uniform from the UCLA Bruins.
This is the school with the 5th best winning percentage in college basketball history–is this a strong case of team success propelling their look or do the uniforms actually stand up on their own?
In addition, I went back and forth over the blue away set or the home white as the better option for UCLA. There’s something about the white that I’ve always liked (I can only explain it as looking extremely California/West Coast to me) and I’m okay with that set making the list. But, I chose the away blue as its more distinctive UCLA.
If we’re going with tradition, the away set has basically been unchanged since color television was invented. The home white set used to have “Bruins” across the chest in yellow and when they switched to the now familiar “UCLA” that was also in yellow. It appears in either 1968 or 1969 they switched to blue on the front of the white jerseys.
When you think about Bruins basketball to you see the blue or the white first?
When I saw this was UCLA I wonder which you were going to go with because they’re both great. I favor the white a little bit but either is worth being here.
Similar to Burnt Orange & Texas, this combo feels very “California” to me.
Definitely blue — the white ones seem a bit boring to me
College baseball uniform re-emergence and possibly too much use aside, I think the baby blue or Columbia blue are criminally underutilized.
I’m a big fan of UCLA football uniforms as well, particularly the USC-UCLA matchup and UCLA’s 90’s uniforms
I’m not a UNC fan but I love the combination of navy blue + baby blue. Marvin Hagler wore it best
UCLAs blue basketball jerseys are surely one of the best sets. Agree about the football, too, with the script on those gold helmets. Watching UCLA-SC as a kid with the contrast of those two color schemes (particularly in the sun) was genuinely intoxicating. Always preferred the Bruins to the duller Trojan yellow.