Mouhamed Dioubate would love to tell you he had a good, practical reason to start rocking a compression shirt underneath his Alabama jersey.
That it keeps his arms warm. That he loves the way it feels. That it's a tribute to the old school days of Patrick Ewing and Chris Mullin, who four decades ago poured in buckets underneath sweat-soaked T-shirts on their way to basketball immortality.
Sorry, it's just not that deep.
“It's drippy,” Dioubate said with a laugh.
Oh, that's Gen Z slang for “stylish” if you're old enough to remember when Mullin and Ewing were fresh-faced kids dominating the Big East and not Hall-of-Fame icons.
And it's spreading. Scan the floor during March Madness in either the men's or women's bracket and you'll find players swagged out in short sleeves — oh, and long ones too. (Yes, that was Maryland's Allie Kubek playing 49 minutes of the Terps' double-overtime thriller against Alabama in the second round on Monday night with her entire arms covered underneath her white No. 14 jersey).
Every basketball generation has a signature look. From the afros and short shorts of the 1970s to the baggy everything look of the Fab Five in the 1990s to Allen Iverson and his one arm-sleeved brethren in the 2000s.
The current wave seems to be leaning into layers. For years — somewhere between Ewing and Mullin and Cooper Flagg and JuJu Watkins — T-shirts were primarily the province of a particular brand of player. Like, “if you leave the T-shirt guy standing all by himself in the corner for 3, that’s going to be a problem” type of player.
“You know he'd be feeling good in that T-shirt," Robert Morris guard Kam Woods said. “If you left him open, it's over with.”
New Mexico's Tru Washington dabbled with an arm sleeve early in his career with the Lobos. He even briefly paired it with a tank top but it started to feel weird. He switched to a T-shirt, but worried it might mess up his jump shot so he went “naked,” only that didn't feel right either. So he switched back and — coincidence or not — saw his 3-point shooting improve.
Flagg, who will lead top-seeded Duke against fourth-seeded Arizona in the Sweet 16 on Thursday, can't remember when he started putting on a T-shirt. He's pretty sure it wasn't to make a fashion statement.
“For me, it's just about being comfortable with what I'm wearing,” he said.
Same goes for Lipscomb's Gyasi Powell, who had a pretty specific reason for putting one on when he joined the Bisons. If he didn't, his jersey would get superglued to his chest.
“I sweat a lot,” Powell said. “After the game, I struggle to take it off. It helps with the struggle.”
It's much the same for LSU's Mikaylah Williams, who needed something to keep the sweat from running down her arms and onto her hands during games.
Powell and Williams are among the vast majority who opt for the moisture-wicking variety of shirts. Lipscomb teammate Jack Ingold pointed to the advancement in fabric as one of the reasons they've become so popular. This isn't the 100% unbreathable cotton that often turned Ewing's light gray undershirt closer to charcoal by halftime.
“All the technology stuff that's going into it now is making it more useful and accessible to athletes,” Ingold said.
Not everyone is on board. Ole Miss guard Jaylen Murray opts for a baggier shirt, believing the compression is “too tight.” Hard to argue. The Rebels are in the Sweet 16 against Michigan State on Friday.
When Murray looks across the court, he might see Spartans forward Frankie Fidler pairing white sleeves and a white headband that holds back a shaggy black mop of hair. Fidler made the move in late November after going from the starting lineup to the bench.
“I thought I'd just switch everything up,” said Fidler, who had 10 points in 17 minutes in a second-round win over New Mexico. “I think the headband came a little after that.”
Asked if he ever considered going to a long sleeve, the lithe 6-foot-7, 217-pound senior deadpanned, “No, I like having my guns showing.”
Robert Morris guard Kam Woods faced a similar need to make a change after his shot seemed to abandon him late in the season. He wasn't having the same issue in practice when he would typically don a T.
“I'm superstitious,” Woods said. “So anything that I feel like works, I'm going with.”
In some places, the T-shirt is ubiquitous. Nearly everyone on the Sweet 16-bound Tennessee women's team has something going on. Not so much at Vanderbilt, where Tyler Nickel was the only Commodore to accessorize his jersey, even if it came at the expense of some of the tattoos near the top of his left arm, a small sacrifice to shoot 40% from 3.
There is also an aesthetic at play. When Dioubate sees someone in a T-shirt, it means “they're a hooper.”
Not a baller. Not a player. A hooper. The difference between the three?
“Hoopers are more fluid,” he said. “If you're wearing (a shirt), that means you're a hooper."
When this theory was relayed to Washington, he nodded.
“You look good, you play good," Washington said. "It's all a part of that dripper vibe.”
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AP Sports Writers Brett Martel, Alanis Thames, Aaron Beard and Steve Megargee contributed to this report.
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Will Graves, The Associated Press
