Big 12 ditches glass court for rest of tournament after player complaints, slipping

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — During the first three days of the Big 12 men’s basketball tournament, the story was not the games. It was the floor. An LED-lit glass surface that made its debut in America for actual competition was flashy, but not a hit with players or coaches.

Most players said it was too slick. Two said it gave them a migraine. Coaches worried about player safety. Then on Thursday, Texas Tech star point guard Christian Anderson went to plant on his left foot and had his foot slide out, injuring his groin. Rumblings started amongst coaches: Was it time to make a change?

“They could do it tonight,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson told The Athletic after his team’s win over BYU. “They probably should. If this was a concert tonight and we had a game tomorrow, no different than that.”

Sampson foreshadowed what was coming. After consulting with some of the coaches who will compete in Friday’s semifinals, the Big 12 decided to return to the traditional hardwood floor. Workers began deconstructing the glass floor late Thursday night, putting an abrupt end to an attempted innovation the conference had promoted for a month.

In a statement, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said he made the decision “in order to provide our student-athletes with the greatest level of comfort on a huge stage this weekend.”

“I think it’s the right thing to do,” Kansas coach Bill Self said after his team’s win over TCU. “That doesn’t need to be the storyline.”

The league actually made the decision before consulting with Self, who said he was told about the change before anyone asked his opinion. No matter the semantics, Anderson’s injury seemed to empower the coaches to start making their voices heard.

The conference originally intended to use the glass floor for multiple years. The surface, essentially a giant television screen, is used by two EuroLeague clubs and was utilized for some of the NBA All-Star festivities in 2024 (but not the game). It marked the second consecutive season the Big 12 tried to innovate with its floor, after debuting an attention-grabbing court last year that felt like a Magic Eye trick.

Publicly, coaches spoke positively about the innovation, but privately, they expressed frustration that the league was experimenting at this time of year, as teams are preparing for — or simply trying to make — the NCAA Tournament.

“Players Era in November?” said one coach Thursday, referencing the November tournament in Las Vegas. “Go for it.”

But not when the stakes are so high.

The Big 12 heard similar complaints last week during the women’s conference tournament, with those coaches warning their men’s counterparts that it was something their players were going to have to get used to. The league pressed on anyway.

“When you innovate and you want to disrupt in a positive way, you’re never going to get 100 percent buy-in,” Yormark said Tuesday before the men’s tournament began. “But I’ve received a lot of positive feedback. And it’s interesting, whenever we innovate, we really encourage all key stakeholders — coaches, student-athletes, whoever — to give us their feedback and we listen intently. So I’m very happy about where we are, but we’re monitoring that feedback and we’re making the necessary adjustments where we can. But I’m very pleased.”

That feedback was not positive for the first three days. Out of eight players polled on Monday by The Athletic, six said the court was slick and several said they’d prefer a return to a normal surface. And it wasn’t just that the floor was slick; the fear of getting hurt started to impact how players were performing. BYU center Keba Keita said Monday that his coaches were getting on him for not playing hard enough, but he found himself “kind of being cautious.”

Keita was not alone.

“The floor is slippery,” Kansas guard Melvin Council Jr. said. “I didn’t want to fully, fully run.”

Council said he was regularly going to a sticky pad to try to improve the grip on his shoes, and he said that’s never normally an issue for him. When told the league was swapping the floor out for traditional hardwood, Council said, “That’s good. I’m excited. We’re happy.”

Anderson, the Texas Tech star, will not get the chance to play on the floor on Friday after his Red Raiders lost to Iowa State. His status may have been in jeopardy had Texas Tech won. The Red Raiders were losing by 22 points when he left the game with 8:37 remaining, but even if the game had been close, he said he wouldn’t have been able to return. He was asked if he thought he would have been hurt on a normal playing surface.

“Not necessarily,” he said. “I mean, anything can happen. I don’t know if it was a wet spot or anything, but, yeah, I just slipped. … You gotta be precise with your movements and you can’t make a lot of movements that will put you in a position to slip.”

Anderson was then asked what he would like to see at the Big 12 tournament if he returns to school next year.

“I think going back to the normal floor is the way to go,” Anderson said.

The remaining teams will not have to wait.