Robbins and Anderson Ladd shoot for the stars at new SDSU practice facility

When the South Dakota State University Jackrabbits needed new gym floors installed in their new state-of-the-art D1 practice facility, they turned to Robbins dealer Anderson Ladd. After all, Anderson Ladd has installed flooring for every D1 facility in the state.

”South Dakota, South Dakota State, pretty much up to the Midwest, too, to Creighton, Omaha, Nebraska, and the University of Minnesota,” said Anderson Ladd Athletic Facility Specialist Mike Larson. “They wanted to go with a company that has put in those types of floors for D1 practice facilities.”

The SDSU Stanley J. Marshall Center addition was a big project for the university and, having worked with Anderson Ladd in the past, facility management and school officials could count on the experts there to find the right flooring for the Jacks. Being sensitive to budget constraints, Anderson Ladd took university representatives to the Sanford Health Pentagon in Sioux Falls to test out a Bio-Channel Star in person.

“Typically for a D1 practice facility, we’d lead with the MVP flooring system, but it really kind of came down to what they had in their budget,” Larson explained. “The next best is, in my view anyway, the Bio-Channel Star system. After dribbling a ball and testing out the Bio-Channel Star floor at Sanford Health, they liked it.”

So nearly 27,000 square feet of Robbins Bio-Channel Star was installed in October 2018 for men and women’s basketball and volleyball in two separate gyms, each with a full-sized NCAA basketball court and two high school length cross courts for added versatility. This provided more flexibility in scheduling practices for all sports and allowed the overall facility to function more efficiently.

“We researched other floors and knew that some high-quality regional gyms were using the Robbins Bio-Channel Star anchored system,” SDSU Senior Associate Athletic Director, Facilities and Operations Jeff Holm said. “Having two additional gym floors has helped our student-athletes and coaches plan practices around academics instead of vice versa.”

The Bio-Channel Star features a continuous subfloor and continuous resilient pad providing vibration damping and control, resulting in improved comfort for users – another perk. Additionally, the improved shock absorption and ball bounce leads to improved player performance, which is a big part of why athletes like the floor.

“All the input that they’ve gotten from players is that they love the floor there,” Larson said. “They love the aesthetics, they love all the graphics that were put on it. They are also aware of the safety features of the floor as far as being easier on the knees and lower back and things like that.”

Despite a challenging timeline and a window that kept getting tighter and tighter, Anderson Ladd finished the project in under ten weeks. Typically a project of that size would take ten weeks to complete, but Anderson Ladd made sure they worked to meet deadline for another project well done.