Basketball from a fan perspective

Published Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday

Bits n Pieces 

Words eye view is published daily except for a period between July and October, 2020 and the pandemic have flipped everything upside down.  The NBA Championship was just completed in in October, the NBA draft was held in November and here we are again.  College and high school basketball has begun, the NBA returns December 22.  The break has been shorter than normal, so, it goes, we return to daily publication on that date, continue to enjoy.     

We guess this applies to all broadcast crews in the NBA, I’m watching the Laker exhibition game and Bill McDonald indicated there would be no travel this season.  McDonald went on to state only teams would travel he and broadcast partner Stu Lantz would be remotely broadcasting today’s game.  Empty arenas, empty broadcast booths for visiting teams all likely due to COVID and our continuing effort to curtail the epidemic.

Must see basketball this season, Oklahoma State and Cade Cunningham.  The freshman is being compared to a “smaller Ben Simmons” which is certainly interesting.  Gonzaga basketball, every season come rain or shine Coach Mark Few turns out a winning team.  This season they begin #1 in the nation.  In the NBA it’s the Lakers, Nets and perhaps the Suns.  At the prep level it’s any game involving Chet Holmgren and Emoni Bates. 

They acted

The Braggin’ Rights game is held annually between Mizzou and the University of Illinois.  In years past the game has been held in St. Louis, the pandemic of 2020 prevented that.  As reported earlier the game was cancelled then resurrected, a coin flip was held to decide on the Columbia campus of Mizzou or the Champaign-Urbana campus of Illinois.  Mizzou won the flip, and the game was played last night.  Just as interesting as the game outcome was the broadcast footprint. 

It was announced ESPN’s SEC Alternative Channel would be the telecast sight.  We heard from those in Mizzou Nation complaining about the choice because of its limitation.  Many cable and satellite fans don’t have the SEC Network or SEC Network Alternative Channel.  Early Friday afternoon a change was announced for the Saturday evening match, the game was moved to the channel generally designated for college sports…ESPNU.  The network must have heard the fans complaint and they acted quickly to respond.   

Don’t tell anyone our secret

Dennis Schroder has only been a Laker a short time, despite this fact I have his jersey.  Well not exactly, I have a Laker #17 jersey, the number he wore with the Hawks and Thunder.  The jersey has the name Bynum on the back, remember him?  He was the Big Man the Lakers drafted in 1985 expecting great things from him.  Unfortunately, after a few good promising seasons he drifted off into never, never land. 

Bynum was out of the NBA and basketball and despite being only 33 years old as this is written he is a distant memory.  It should be pointed out injuries were a contributing factor however there are many questions about his heart and head.  The front of the jersey appears to be Schroder’s, no one needs to be made aware it is an old Bynum jersey.  Please don’t tell anyone, it’s our secret.  Now if a player is added to the Laker roster wearing #10, I can hang the old Steve Nash jersey as well.