Metallic gold paint tends to crumble and wear. White paint can yellow with time and foot traffic. Different polyurethane finishes reflect light differently on high-definition television. Oregon’s "fir forest" basketball court is no template.

When Georgia Tech unveils its new McCamish Pavilion in the fall, the court’s appearance will be the product of dozens of hours of thought, effort and learning. Naturally, ESPN also had its say.

“It’s been an education,” said senior associate athletic director Paul Griffin, who has been the school’s point man in the construction process.

The short answer is that the plan for the maple hardwood court is a navy-blue border with white and gold lettering along the baselines. The “GT” logo will grace center court. The areas inside the 3-point arcs will be stained in a different shade than the rest of the court, which will count for $130,000 of the $45 million project.

“It’ll be what we hope people will think of as classy,” athletic director Dan Radakovich said.

To determine the final design, Radakovich sought the help of the entire department, asking staffers to pay attention to court designs as they watched games last winter and make suggestions on what they liked or didn’t like. Radakovich called Michigan’s Crisler Center “a really nice, clean-looking court.” The forest-themed design of Oregon’s Matthew Knight Arena fell in the discard pile.

The large Buzz logo that dominated the midcourt at Alexander Memorial Coliseum will not re-appear, at least not in painted form.

“Sometimes, when you try to be something you’re not, it doesn’t come off real well,” Radakovich said.

While the border of Alexander Memorial Coliseum’s court was gold, Radakovich chose navy blue for McCamish because it will match better with the gray seating of the arena. Further, white and metallic gold don’t wear well. White can grow dingy and metal flecks in the metallic gold paint have difficulty adhering to the polyurethane finish. Instead of metallic gold, designers are trying an enamel that they hope will appear metallic.

“Techies are a little sensitive with their gold,” Griffin said.

Another reason for the navy blue border is how it will play on television and the floor’s appearance on TV drove much of the process. For instance, Radakovich positioned the primary midcourt camera angle so that the student section, which runs the length of the court, will be in the picture as is the case with Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium and Kansas’ Allen Fieldhouse.

The school sought ESPN’s opinion on matters ranging from the width of the border around the court to the size and placement of the “Cremins Court” and “McCamish Pavilion” lettering on the floor to the various paint shades. Griffin put together 4×4-foot samples of the floor with different combinations of blues, golds and whites, along with different finishes with the same lighting they will use in the arena, and tested them under camera.

“Those are all things [that] we want to make sure that the way that we depict them shows up great in person and really great on television,” Radakovich said.

In that vein, Oregon’s arena, opened in January 2011, proved educational for another reason. On television, the court reflects glare from the ribbon board lining the upper deck. McCamish will have an LED board on the facing of its upper level. Griffin said he was told the floor design and the glossy polyurethane finish, as well as the angle of the lighting, caused the glare.

In August, Griffin plans to have what he calls a “mock broadcast” to tinker with the lighting and scoreboards, in part to check how they reflect off the floor. He realizes that once the building opens in November, everyone will have opinions on how the arena and floor look. He just wants the decisions on the look to have been based on discussion and planning.

“Not, ‘Gosh, I never thought of that,’” Griffin said.

The plan is for a final decision on colors and polyurethanes to be made Thursday. Installation begins in the summer.

“We want the floor to be nice,” Radakovich said. “But it’s almost like when you get dressed up. You want your shoes to match everything else. You don’t want necessarily the shoes to be the thing that everybody looks at.”