Why the Ribbon Emblems on NCAA courts?

Factual Questions
1

Watching the NCAA men’s basketball championship I’ve noticed that most, if not all, of the various basketball courts around the country have these curious ribbon-shaped emblems on them that are colored red, white and blue. What is the purpose of these and what do they mean?

They seem to be expressions of national pride, but why not just have a flag? Don’t these arenas already have big American flags displayed?

Why have an emblem of an emblem of an emblem? (floor insignia --> colored ribbon --> flag) It seems very silly to me. It seems just a lot of unnecessary contextual layers. It’s like those magnets that look like ribbons on cars. Why? Why not just put a flag on your car? Or if you can’t fly a flag on your antenna or whatnot, how about a flag decal?

I’ve even seen people wear enameled-metal lapel-pins shaped like red/white/blue ribbons. I don’t get that at all! These folks could just wear an actual ribbon pinned to their lapel, or an American flag pin like the president wears.

2

WAG: If they painted a flag on the court, the players would be walking all over the flag during the game. A lot of people would frown on that.

3

Good point. I think you’re right that people would be offended by folks stepping on a representation of the flag, although the artificial ribbon gets stepped on and it is also a representation of a flag, just one step removed.

But I still don’t see any “added value” for patriotism when sports arenas add more flags (beyond the huge, lighted, prominently displayed flags already present in every NCAA tournament arena).

And the “stepped-on” thing still doesn’t explain the artificial-ribbon magnets on people’s cars. What’s up with that? Same with the “ribbon” lapel-pins. At what point did a representation of a ribbon become a more prominent symbol than the flag itself?