Basketball from a fans perspective

Published Monday through Friday

This prediction

Sometimes you need to boldly go where no man has gone before. Sorry, I had to borrow that line from Star Trek because I believe it applies here. This is rare for me, Mr. Keep it Safe rarely ventures onto that limb and makes an attempt to pick a winner ahead of the game being played. That’s for other guys to do and when they are proven wrong, I have the opportunity to laugh at them. In this instance I am providing you the opportunity in front of the BIG GAME, of course Duke must win first on Saturday.

Duke must secure victory over the weekend before the Monday evening tip-off. Okay I gave it away my 2022 NCAA Champion is the Duke Blue Devils. Could they mess up my prognostication by losing on Saturday afternoon or even Monday night? That certainly is a possibility after watching them lose the last game for Coach K. at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Just consider this fact, if it turns out I’m wrong you have plenty of grounds to laugh at me. On the other hand, if my prediction is correct…. well, what do you do? Am I to be applauded for my insight or do you simply attribute it to dumb luck?

Who pays?

Construction of a 70,000-seat football stadium certainly would be more expensive than a 20,000-capacity basketball arena. For those unfamiliar with the geography the Kansas City Chiefs have played on the Missouri side since their existence. A proposal has been mentioned regarding a new stadium in Kansas. This is no innovation New York NFL football and the Mets have played in New Jersey for years. We’d have to return to the Cotton Bowl days to find an NFL Cowboys team playing in Dallas. Play in successive years has been Irving and now in Arlington Texas. Although no city name exists on the jerseys the MSL team Sporting Kansas City has long played on the Kansas side of State Line Road.

 A stadium or arena in a different state or city is not my concern, I would continue to root for the Chiefs no matter where they played. If given the opportunity I would have no issues driving to Kansas City Kansas for a game. We must take into consideration Kansas fans have done this for years now. My issue, new stadiums and arenas financed by the public with billionaire owners contributing none or a smaller amount of costs. The Warriors home, Chase Center in San Francisco was built exclusively with private funds, the reported construction cost was $1.4 billion for a 20,000-seat arena.

The Intuit Dome with a planned opening of 2024 home of the Clippers has a $2 billion price tag attached to it, according to reports owner Steve Ballmer is footing the bill for the arena. Imagine that figure multiplied three times for a football stadium, hopefully you see where I’m going. This would appear to be an anti-build stadium/arena rant but that is not the case. If owners, be they NFL or NBA desire new buildings they should be responsible citizens. Titleholders should be willing to assume some or all portions of the cost. Depending on the dynamics the public should be involved in the maintenance and upkeep of the enterprise.

Missouri Gatorade Player of the Year

If we check the history of the award, it will appear Jayson Tatum of the Celtics had a monopoly on the prize. The Celtic forward won the Gatorade award his sophomore, junior and senior year at Chaminade College Prep in the St. Louis metro. In 2022 the honor goes to Luke Norweather a 6-foot 10 220 pound forward; the youngster is a senior at Blair Oaks High School in the Jefferson City metro area.

Norweather’s season total was 29.2 points and 11.4 rebounds a game for the Class 4 school. Two notes, the history of the award indicates the concentration of basketball talent resides in the urban areas of St. Louis, Kansas City and Springfield. That’s not to say those are the only areas of the state with basketball talent, the majority of honorees have attended high schools in those cities. As this is written it’s undecided where Norweather might be headed in the fall, you will be updated at a future date.

My belief   

I hope new Mizzou coach Dennis Gates and former coach Cuonzo Martin get an opportunity to meet. Don’t count me in with the legions of Mizzou Nation wanting Martin fired. I’ve always believed he was a standup guy despite his record the last two seasons on the court. See it was different this time, I was ready for Quin Snyder to leave, he might have been far too young to run a Division I program at the time. Now it’s different he’s managed to re-invent himself with the NBA Utah Jazz. Mike Anderson was a different story; he ran a squeaky-clean program, but it always appeared he was waiting on that phone call. The call indicating the Arkansas head coaching job was open, despite a salary increase Anderson headed south when the job opened the second time. Enter next through the door was Frank Haith from Miami (FL).

Indiscretions with the NCAA would turned up in Haith’s background after he was hired. Should a more thorough background search have been conducted…of course. I’m not sure if Haith left Mizzou anticipating being fired or what. He would leave without too much advance notice and this time Mizzou did an even worst job in the hiring department. Kim Anderson former Mizzou player and assistant under Norm Stewart was made head coach. Anderson had tasted success at Division II University of Central Missouri, that would not be the case for Mizzou the program went further downhill almost immediately. To this day it’s been my contention there was probably nothing wrong with Anderson’s playbook he just couldn’t recruit talent. Finally, we arrive at the hire of Cuonzo Martin, there is no animosity on my part regarding any of the departed coaches. I believe wrong place and maybe the wrong time…as for Cuonzo Martin it was a different story for me. He will continue to be a favorite with me, I hope he gets another chance to coach somewhere, good luck in the future coach.