March Is Cancelled: The B1G Conference Tournament Has Gotten Rid of Their Beloved Center Court Pinwheel Logo

To say I am gutted beyond repair would be an understatement. Yesterday I left work at 2:30pm and raced home to catch the first round matchup between the 12-seed Washington Lady Huskies, and the 13-seed Minnesota Golden Lady Gophers. I'd been on pins and needles from the moment the B1G expanded to 18 teams. Not because of any potential new matchups. Not for any basketball reason. But because the B1G conference tournament's universally beloved pinwheel logo, a logo I come to cherish, would be adding 4 new colorful flaps. 

How would the new 18-team pinwheel look? Would the flaps be thinner? Would the logo be bigger?  Where would they put cardinal and gold of USC? What about the green and yellow of Oregon? What about UCLA and Washington? All teams with brand new, completely unique color combinations never before seen in the B1G. Never before seen together on a pinwheel. I was at full mast and ready to blow. So imagine my surprise, on a Wednesday afternoon sitting comfortably on my couch in the black fleece Snuggie my mother-in-law got me for Christmas, when I flipped to the B1G Network and saw this atrocity on my living room TV. 

I couldn't believe my eyes. I thought was having a stroke. When I finally processed what I was seeing, and realized the product on my screen was in fact a women's basketball game and not the Indy 500, I damn near punted by dog across the room. How could they do this? The pinwheel logo had been a staple of B1G basketball for as long as they'd been using the pinwheel logo. If the B1G is willing to change their center court conference tournament logo to not a pinwheel, then what aren't they capable of? What will the take from us next year? The three-point line? The baskets? Could be anything.

I wasn't alone in my outrage. The internet was red with anger.

I thought they had learned their lesson in 2023 when they tried to change the logo to lines.

But thank to tweets, in 2024 they brought the pinwheel back. Order was restored. March was saved. I thought we had won. I thought the B1G center court conference tournament pinwheel logo would stand the test of time. That 50 years from now when I'm on hospice in my living room, brain riddled with dementia, shouting the wrong slurs at my son's racially ambiguous wife, that I would catch a glimpse of the B1G pinwheel logo. A logo that now has 42 flaps. And seeing the logo would unlock something in my brain and remind me who I was. I'd lock eyes with my overtly frustrated children and we'd share moment where I briefly remembered that they aren't government agents sent to kill me over a blog I wrote in 2025. I'd have one more chance to tell them I loved them. Then go back to demanding Isabella bring me a plate of Egg Foo Young. 

To think we could have had this at center court in Indianapolis this weekend…

But instead they gave us checkered flags. Watching my Indiana Hoosiers shoot 20% from three and lose in the quarterfinals will never be the same again. Sad day for the B1G. Sad day for college basketball. Sad day for art.