ANAHEIM, Calif. >> The members of the Oklahoma men’s basketball team have a motto, “Play for each other.” The Sooners took the saying to heart in their round-of-16 victory over Texas A&M Thursday, producing their most concerted effort of the season. But the Oklahoma players will not have “Play for each other” emblazoned across their chests Saturday when they take the court against the Oregon Ducks in the West Regional final.

The Sooners are sponsored by Nike, which like other shoe and apparel companies has one guiding principle during the annual NCAA basketball tournaments: One slogan fits all.

Almost every athlete from a Nike-sponsored team has donned a T-shirt during the last two weeks bearing the catchphrase “Always Reppin’,” the company’s chosen slogan this March. Oklahoma players wore the T-shirts for their game against the Aggies, who are sponsored by Adidas, and they could see Ducks-centric mirror images on the opposing bench Saturday in what amounts — at least in corporate terms — to a fratricidal battle.

Phil Knight, the Nike founder, attended Oregon and has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to his alma mater. The Ducks are “Always Reppin’” too, except when they are on the “Quack Attack” or championing “Mighty Oregon.” They have a change of shirt for every game of the week.

Knight, who attended the Ducks’ victory Thursday over Duke, another Nike team, said it was like watching two of his children square off, as if he were basketball marketing’s version of Richard Williams, the father of the tennis players Venus and Serena Williams.

The Oregon players said they wore whatever warm-up attire was hung in their locker stalls by the Ducks’ equipment manager. That is Donovan Rogers, who said he followed a script provided by a Nike employee acting as a kind of awards-season stylist for member schools in the running for Best Performance by a Team in a Leading Role.

According to another Nike employee, Brian Strong, a company spokesman, a marketing team came up with “Always Reppin.’” It may have been inspired by a Birdman rap song, “4 My Town,” in which Drake sings the lyric “I’m just repping for my town.”

In an email, Strong described the warm-up shirts as an “inspirational” product, one obviously meant to be shared. The shirts are available for purchase at Nike stores.

Does it rub any players the wrong way to have an inorganic slogan on their organic cotton shirts? Do they care that they are essentially modeling the apparel company’s latest line of inspirational clothing, and all they get out of the deal are a few T-shirts?

“There’s certain stuff you like more than others depending on whatever your taste is,” said Casey Benson, a sophomore guard at Oregon. He added: “It’s nice to have your own original saying. There’s something to be said about that.”

Caid Kirven, a 6-foot-9 senior forward for Virginia, which is sponsored by Nike, said: “I’m always a fan of getting new stuff. But, yeah, it is one of those things because we get them and they’re awesome and we’re really excited and then we turn on the TV and everyone is wearing them and it’s like, Oh, man.”

The Cavaliers defeated another Nike team, Iowa State, in the round of 16 Friday, and they will face another corporate partner Sunday, since Syracuse is reppin’ this spring, too.

The Cyclones’ Deonte Burton had no problem sharing a motivational slogan with the competition.

“Even with the ‘Always Reppin’,’ it’s customized to the colors of the school, so it brings a different type of pride for each school because different schools represent different things,” Burton said. “It’s bigger than the actual slogan.”

On Thursday, the Texas A&M players wore warm-up shirts that reflected their guiding philosophy, “Heart Over Hype.” Senior guard Alex Caruso explained the motto. “It’s about working hard, doing the little things every day that make you a good team,” he said.

But Caruso was not wearing the “Heart Over Hype” shirt as he spoke. The Aggies are an Adidas team, and so they had shirts with the company-approved — and widely copied — slogan “Made in March.” As far as inspirational messages go, “Made for April” might have been better for Texas A&M, which failed to advance.

Before the game against the Aggies, Oklahoma’s Jordan Woodard met the news media wearing a long-sleeve white shirt with the words “Bring Your Game” emblazoned across the front. If he had his choice of shirts, he was asked, would he prefer that one for warm-ups or the ubiquitous “Always Reppin’”?

“Ooooooh,” Woodard said, pausing to think. “I like them both. ‘Always Reppin’ has the Oklahoma logo underneath, so it’s always repping Oklahoma, and I like that.”

Woodard’s teammate Buddy Hield is not particular about what he wears. He grew up in the Bahamas as one of seven children raised by his mother. In a post on The Players’ Tribune, he wrote recently about not having enough money for new clothes. He dressed in what he described as “pass-me-down” T-shirts from his siblings or traded clothing with his brothers.

“It’s funny thinking about my fashion style as a kid,” Hield wrote. “It was whatever T-shirt another brother wasn’t wearing that day.”

For Hield, a player-of-the-year contender, happiness is a new T-shirt. How’s that for a slogan? He said he collected the T-shirts he received during the season and distributed them to family members and friends back home.

“It’s kind of tough, though, because sometimes when I’m looking for gear to wear, I don’t find any,” he said with a laugh, “because I’m always sending it back home.”

The motto that Hield lives by is not found on any NCAA tournament T-shirt. But maybe it should be.

“My mom always taught us to share,” he said. “She said, ‘What’s yours is mine, what’s mine is yours.’”

© 2016 The New York Times Company