South Carolina is buying the center court logo from 2024 WBB national championship
The Division I national championship trophy won’t be South Carolina women’s basketball’s only souvenir from Cleveland.
USC has purchased the center court logo from the 2024 Final Four and some additional panels for around $86,000, senior women’s administrator Maria Hickman told The State. It’s expected that the logo will be displayed somewhere at Colonial Life Arena, the home of USC basketball, but an exact location has not been determined.
Buying the whole court or portions of it is always offered to the NCAA champions. The decision to purchase the court goes through the individual sport’s administrator (which has been Hickman since 2019) as well as head coach Dawn Staley and athletic director Ray Tanner. Together, the group has accepted the offer every year South Carolina has won the tournament.
“Going to the championship and winning it is a big accomplishment,” Hickman said. “So it’s just a way for us to cement our history and to display it so that those fans who were able to attend, those who came to all the games in the CLA and helped them get to that moment, it’s just a way to show that appreciation.”
The logo USC made history on in Cleveland will join the center court pieces from 2017 in Dallas and 2022 in Minneapolis. Both pieces are on display in the lobby of Colonial Life Arena. While the 2017 logo was purchased before Hickman became the administrator, USC purchased the 2022 logo for about $60,000, she said.
South Carolina leadership is still deciding where the 2024 logo will go once it’s been shipped to and reassembled in Columbia, Hickman said, as the walls of Colonial Life Arena’s lobby are running out of room.
Additional 2024 panels South Carolina purchased from Connor Sports, the court supplier for the NCAA Tournament since 2006, have been sent to Artsman to make limited edition keepsakes for purchase. Artsman is a memorabilia company that will sell these items made from played-on pieces of the court to fans, and a portion of the proceeds will go to the South Carolina women’s basketball team.
