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Wisconsin Men's Basketball Player Critical Of Under Armour Basketballs, NCAA's Structure

Wisconsin F Nigel Hayes has become the latest Big 10 player to complain about playing with Under Armour basketballs after his team was "reintroduced to the Under Armour ball" in advance of Saturday's game at Maryland, according to Jim Polzin of the WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL. Home teams provide the balls, and Maryland is a UA school. Hayes said, "I don’t like the Under Armour ball whatsoever. But that’s the way this amateur sports league is set up. We’re supposed to be having fun, but all the money is in these basketballs that colleges play with. But it’s an amateur sport, we’re just here for fun. It’s not really that serious. So I guess any ball should be OK." He suggested college hoops "should have a universal ball like the NBA." Hayes: "You don’t go to the Clippers’ stadium and play with a Nike and then go to Golden State and play with a Rawlings. But in this amateur sport of college, where money isn’t the goal -- it’s the student education and experience that you get -- we play with a million different basketballs.” Polzin notes UW G Bronson Koenig and Iowa Gs Peter Jok and Mike Gesell also have said that they do not like playing with the UA ball. Despite having an apparel deal with adidas for the past 15 years, UW has "used a Sterling Athletics brand basketball for its home games because former Badgers coach Bo Ryan has a long history" with the company. Hayes' comments "may cause some in the UW athletic department to cringe because the school has entered a 10-year agreement with Under Armour that goes into effect on July 1." The deal with UA has a "clause for existing agreements that include basketballs for the men’s basketball team." A UW official said that the agreement with Sterling Athletics "would still fall under that clause even though Ryan retired" (WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, 2/12).

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