BASKETBALL FROM A FANS PERSPECTIVE

Ben Simmons 2.0?

Josh Green made his commitment known, Green a 5-star prospect and Rivals number 11 in the Class of 2019 is headed to Arizona.  Green is a 6-foot 6-inch shooting guard currently enrolled at IMG Academy in Bradenton Florida.  The “Ben Simmons 2.0” reference has to do with Green’s place of birth, he’s from Australia and his parentage is the same as Simmons.  His father an American played professional basketball in Australia where he met Green’s mom an Australian citizen.     

We don’t know if Green has enough talent to gain entry into the NBA, his life-story is remarkably similar to Simmons.  He becomes the second-high profile athlete to sign with Arizona, earlier point guard Nico Mannion (Rivals #20) committed.  Neither athlete appears to be fazed by any possible NCAA issues.  Shareef O’Neal verbally committed to Arizona last year and later changed his mind after negative stories appeared regarding coach Sean Miller and Arizona. 

Am I bias?

You better bet I am, especially when it comes to the teams I root for.  Some fan of Kansas basketball reading yesterdays “Whether it’s true that’s the perception” will say you just hate on Kansas.  I challenge you Jayhawk Nation, prove my statement incorrect about Kansas football.  Borrowing the immortal words of Allen Iverson with appropriate additions on my part, “We’re talking about football, not basketball.  Not basketball. Not a basketball game.  We’re talking about football.  Not basketball.”  Check me out, if my perception is incorrect about these past events I will acknowledge such.  Here is the problem, no Big 10 conference official is going to admit publicly “We want Kansas basketball but not football.”  The easier path is to avoid extending an invitation period.  You can make critical remarks if you wish about Mizzou basketball many of us are able to see the Big Picture. 

An apology

It’s being reported Celtics guard Kyrie Irving has apologized for stating the earth was flat.  His explanation, he was into conspiracy theories.  I’m unsure about you however it never bothered me, I thought he was a little strange for making such a statement in 2018.  Bigfoot, Bermuda Triangle, Yeti there are a bunch out there, but the earth is a little different.  Man-made satellites have been circling the earth since 1957, in addition numerous astronauts and cosmonauts have circled this “flat-earth”.  We can argue whether the Apollo moon landings were fake, but I do have a question?  How in the world did the iconic photo of the earth come about?  Oh, I guess it might have been computer generated I must have answered my own question.  

College basketball on television

It’s time to revisit the issue of television coverage of college basketball.  Most of you reading this might find it difficult to believe your favorite team was not always available to see.  Locally a Big 8 game of the week occurred on Saturday and later an NBC or later CBS Network game was televised.  That was the total coverage in this part of the country, Kansas 50 miles from here and Mizzou (150 miles) were rarely on television despite their proximity to Kansas City.  Once the NCAA tournament became prominent coverage increased significantly but not all the games.  Usually the only tournament games were telecast on weekends.  The television event often referred to as the Game of the Century was responsible for the explosion in coverage of college basketball. 

Elvin Hayes University of Houston Cougars faced Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar's) UCLA Bruins.  The game was played in Houston’s Astrodome before 52,000 fans plus a national television audience in January 1968.  ESPN didn’t exist at the time plus NBC, CBS or ABC likely had any desire to interrupt their prime-time programming for a basketball game.  An entrepreneur by the name of Eddie Einhorn formed a sports network, The TVS Network was the forerunner to ESPN.  Einhorn sold the game to several independent and network stations across the nation.  Years later ESPN was launched, and the college basketball landscape would change forever.  This certainly is not a complete picture but might provide younger readers a portion of the history of college basketball.