The Reviews Are In: BONZIE COLSON’s Floral Shirt Is Sublime

Well Irish fans, as you all know, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s hoops team lost in heartbreaking fashion to the North Carolina Tar Heels on Saturday night. The loss was the team’s second in a row and dropped ND’s record to 13-5 overall and 3-2 in the ACC.

However, despite the bad refereeing and the scoring drought and the rimmed-out buzzer beater, there was still something fantastic that came out of Saturday evening’s barnburner for the Irish, and we need to celebrate that fact.

Yes, of course, I’m talking about that spectacular shirt, that trendsetting top, that beautiful button-down that injured Notre Dame senior F BONZIE COLSON was sporting on the bench as he cheered on his squad against the #20 team in the country.

A screenshot of his TV that my friend Evan sent me

When professional players are injured for extended periods of time, or sometimes just when they’re taking the night off, you’ll usually see them sporting high-fashion ensembles so that they look good when the camera pans to them on the bench during the action.

In college, though, the players don’t have the money to afford such outfits, and so they usually keep things pretty simple and understated.

BONZIE is in rare company here.

A screenshot of his TV that my friend Evan sent me

That’s not to say he’s all alone in looking good on the bench. We have seen star college players don more...festive attire, on occasion, in the past.

Willie Cauley-Stein’s next-level fashion sense in 2014 comes to mind.

Nevertheless, it’s rare for a college player to get out there and strut his stuff in fashionable, eye-popping clothing like BONZIE did on Saturday night. So I asked my Twitter followers to send me their reactions, comments, and reviews of BONZIE’s floral SSBD (short-sleeve button-down, for those of you who aren’t my small group of friends who use that terminology).

The reviews are in, and they are GLOWING.

My friend Isaac, a known floral print shirt connoisseur, kept his remarks on the shirt simple but powerful.

Suave BONZIE, indeed.

SB Nation and One Foot Down’s own Jessica, Queen of the Meme, summed up her thoughts in just three phrases.

The callback to Maui Brey is a subtle connection I did not make on Saturday night, but a very important one, in my opinion. We’ve gotta assume BONZIE’s floral shirt reminded the team of Maui Brey and elevated their performance to another level, allowing the team to nearly pull off the upset. Excellent observation, Jessica.

My friend Michael, one of the people who introduced me to the term SSBD, had this to say:

I can’t be the only person that agrees and thinks some black Irish jerseys with multi-colored floral letters and numbers would be absolute fire and, like the gold jerseys, give the team that mental edge they need on the floor. Michael just took Jessica’s observation and made it into an actionable, program-improving initiative. Well done, Mr. Francais.

Someone I don’t know but who has a great Drew-related pun in their Twitter handle chimed in with this olfactory-heavy review of BONZIE’s getup:

Unless Drewuary is over here with the TV of the future with some sort of scratch-and-sniff technology, I think this says A TON about how vivid, ethereal, and life-like the blossoms on BONZIE’s shirt were, and I think he speaks for all of us in that we ALL wanted to know just how good BONZIE probably smelled with the fragrance of those flowers enveloping him.

The final Twitter response I got was from my friend Mojo’s owner Tommy (Mojo is Tommy’s pug and although I consider Tommy my friend, I consider Mojo my soulmate and thus feel he deserves A-list billing ahead of Tommy).

Here are Mojo and I on the day we met:

My friend’s Facebook photo album

Anyway, Tommy essentially name-dropped another friend that you all don’t know, but I can assure you that Jon Brand loves shirts like this and would definitely be very proud.

A simple Twitter search for “bonzie colson shirt” uncovered countless more positive reactions to BONZIE’s stunning SSBD:

I could go on and on, but you get the point.

To sum all this up, BONZIE COLSON is a national treasure, Irish fans, and if he continues to do amazing things like introduce shirts like this one into our lives, we will forever be indebted to him.

A screenshot of his TV that my friend Evan took

So, to just BEGIN to repay him for not only all the basketball memories he has given us, but also now the excellent shirt memories he is bringing our way, I think we as Notre Dame fans need to show up to Senior Night this year all wearing this exact same shirt, or at least the closest shirt we can find to it.

Can you imagine a sea of gorgeous flower-based SSBDs surrounding the court at Purcell?

Not only will our seniors be moved to tears due to the sheer awe that will be inspired within them, but the opponent (Pittsburgh) will be so overcome with love for the Irish program and their fans that they will simply forfeit, allowing for everyone in attendance to mingle together and maybe throw some sort of tropical-themed luau to celebrate instead of playing a basketball game.

I had the idea earlier in the year to have a Maui Brey-themed night sometime in the dead of South Bend winter, so that Mike Brey can re-transform into Maui Brey and all the fans can wear a bunch of tropical-themed clothing while the students go all-out with inflatable inner tubes and Hawaiian shirts and maybe even a sandcastle-building contest integrated into the evening somehow...but now I think it makes more sense for everyone to just purchase this shirt and wear it in solidarity with our guy BONZIE (and, of course, so we can all look fly as hell, like BONZIE).

I’ll leave you all with that thought, and ask you to please comment on this article with an example of a time in your life that BONZIE’s floral SSBD truly made you believe in the inherent goodness of mankind.

Screenshot taken of his TV by my friend Evan

Oh, and if you know where I can buy that shirt, please let me — hell, all of us -- know. We need to start submitting our orders for February 28th.

*Pat Rick Note* I’d like to give a quick shout-out to my friend Evan Huxhold, who sent me various screenshots of BONZIE’s shirt during the game and INSISTED I write about it. This fantastic piece of journalism would not have been possible without him

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UPDATE: WE HAVE FOUND THE SHIRT AT URBAN OUTFITTERS:

Furthermore, I have left a glowing review of the shirt, just to support the great people at Urban Outfitters who brought us this amazing BONZIE outfit. Shout out to my man Keith for daring me to do it.