A few days before the Sweet 16, Loyola guard Marques Townes was texting with an NBA player who had competed in the Final Four.
He could have asked for any advice at all, but the conversation with Karl Anthony-Towns, a former Kentucky star, was all about shoes.
“He was like, ‘Man, just wear the most comfortable shoes,’ ” said Townes, who played with Towns in high school in New Jersey. “‘It’s no fashion show. Just be comfortable out there; be you.’”
Townes has been donning his comfy, salmon-colored “Hollywood LeBron” pair throughout the tournament since that talk. And Loyola has continued to roll all the way to the Final Four, where the No. 11 seed will face Michigan on Saturday in San Antonio’s Alamodome.
Before college basketball players prepare for the most significant games of their lives in the NCAA tournament, they pour over scouting reports, absorb last-minute details from coaches, work on their shot — and, yes, they spend an awful lot of time deciding what to wear on their feet.
The NFL fines players for wearing shoes that differentiate them from teammates. College football programs are uniform in footwear too — all black or all white cleats.
But NBA players are free to express themselves — and promote their own brands. College basketball players are eager to emulate them with sneakers of the stars, and as long as they wear the brand that sponsors their team, college players’ style preference can be whatever they wish.
“I’m a sneaker-head, so I like to make sure I’m on my A-game with that,” said Loyola senior Donte Ingram, who owns about 50 pairs of basketball shoes.
His prized pair is bright, multicolored “Nike Hyperdunk Low Chicago” designed last year to honor his friend and former Simeon teammate Saieed Ivey, who was shot fatally in June 2016. The shoes feature Ivey’s jersey number, 2, and the acronym “FINAO” — failure is not an option — which Ivey said frequently.
But in Saturday’s Final Four game against Michigan, Ingram will wear white Aunt Pearl KDs.
“I like to switch it up and give different looks out there,” he said.
Other players select their shoes for function. Some wear the same pair until they are near decay.
“They’re nasty,” Michigan forward Moe Wagner said, looking down at his black, boat-sized Jordan 11s. “I’ll be so happy when the season is over, so I can throw them away. Or I’ll keep them as a memory. They won’t make it long.”
Wagner wears them because they allow his right ankle brace to fit inside. But his teammates rib him for his old-school style.
“They’re giving me a lot of — I‘m not going to say the s-word — a lot of stuff for wearing these retros,” Wagner said.
Loyola freshman Lucas Williamson wore his PG 1 pair last season at Whitney Young all the way until the NCAA tournament before upgrading to a pair of PG 2s. He wears them because he hopes to emulate Paul George’s play.
“I’m going to stick with these,” Williamson said
Michigan senior guard Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman might be the hardest player to miss on the court — and not only because of his shot. They don’t exactly match his maize-and-blue uniform, but his hot pink Air Jordan XXXII shoes make him the flashiest player on the court.
He wore them last season for a game promoting breast cancer awareness, and then after Michigan’s plane skidded off the runway before the 2017 Big Ten tournament they were the only pair Abdur-Rahkman had available. He shot well and has laced them back up this season.
“I just feel I have a certain swag ’bout me when I wear them,” he said.
Don’t they all?
Twitter @sryantribune
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