March Madness is all about the moments.
Christian Laettner’s indelible turnaround, game-winning shot. Tyus Edney going coast-to-coast for the win. A jubilant Jimmy V running around the court searching for someone to hug. Magic and Bird squaring
Oh, and don’t forget about the iconic unis and shorts, which evoke instant nostalgia and connect us back to the fond moments of yesteryear. Those shortsâand the memories they triggerâare now available in the marketplace.
Meet 19nine, the worldâs only throwback college basketball apparel company, aptly located in basketballâs Heartland of Indiana. Founded by Josh Barnett, Aaron Loomer and Chad Amo in 2011, 19nineâa nod to the old distance for the college three-point lineâfocuses on recreating retro shorts and vintage t-shirts that celebrate college basketball history and the players and teams we love.

“What we have found is people donât really buy a shirt or pair of shorts,” Barnett told SLAM. “What they are buying is the story. The better the story, the better the response to a product. Nostalgia plays a huge part in what we try to do.”
19nine currently has licenses with 22 universitiesâincluding Indiana, Purdue, St. John’s, Wake Forest, Xavier, UNLV and Bird and Magic’s alma maters of Michigan State and Indiana State, respectivelyâwith two more schools coming on board this March, dropping the moment brackets are revealed on Selection Sunday.

How fitting, especially for a company hyper-focused on marrying quality feel and timeless authenticity.
“It was extremely important for us to bring the vintage feel of the ’80s and ’90s to our shorts,â Barnett remarked. âOur mesh-poly blend to give the shorts the heavy feel of yesteryear but with a smooth inside lining for the comfort of today.”
Barnett and company take their missionâcapturing the emotion, essence and look of theirs schools’ most memorable teams of the pastâvery seriously.
“In a sense, we view ourselves as the curators of college basketball history and we tell that story through apparel. We donât want to let these players, teams, coaches, moments go un-celebrated,” Barnett said.

With the calendar getting ready to flip toward the onset of Madness, 19nine will be busy watching games, shipping product and executing toward their greater vision of becoming a licensed vendor of all Power-5 Conference teams.
âEvery school has a great story to tell and weâd love to be the ones tasked with doing so,” he said. “I think itâs literally impossible to run out of college basketball stories to tell but until we do, thereâs work left to do.”