Exclusive: Feast your eyes on Stony Brook’s new basketball court
Earlier this summer, Athletics Director Shawn Heilbron broke the news that the court at Island Federal Credit Union Arena, the home of Stony Brook men’s and women’s basketball, would be getting a facelift.
With the men’s program traveling through Europe for the next two weeks and women’s star India Pagan helping lead Team Puerto Rico in the chase for gold at the Pan American games, work will soon get underway on the new floor. And Brookland can now exclusively share with fans just what that new court will look like this fall.
Take a look:
The most notable addition, of course, is at mid-court. Gone at last is the interlocking SB logo that has plagued Athletics for nearly two decades. Ever since Heilbron assumed the reigns of the department five years ago, the SB logo has slowly been extinguished from campus, first disappearing from Athletics Department digital properties and official paperwork, then from uniforms and apparel, then last year from the field and Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium.
The last major holdout was the basketball court. The renovation of IFCU Arena was a long, arduous process, and bridged the tenures of two athletics directors and two university presidents. When it opened just before the 2014 season, it featured a court design that was likely settled upon years prior, well before a decision was made to exorcise the old SB logo. The new arena is still only five full seasons old, so to rip up the brand new floor any sooner than this offseason would have felt a bit exorbitant.
The other notable feature is the court background, a silhouette of Long Island that spans the entire length of the floor. Stony Brook has leaned hard on their Long Island roots, and for good reason. In our very first interview with Heilbron shortly after he was named the new AD, he made a point to note that Long Island by itself is home to a huge, sports-hungry population of nearly 8 million people, making it larger than 38 entire states. Even excluding the two boroughs of New York City, Nassau and Suffolk are home to nearly 3 million people. Positioning Stony Brook as their hometown Division I team would be a huge boost to the Seawolves’ lofty aspirations.
