Published Monday thru Friday    

Basketball from a fans perspective

Bits n Pieces 

Annor Boateng visited Mizzou on Friday August 25, as a reminder to some Boateng is a 4-star rated prospect by sites Rivals and 247Sports. I stopped counting at 12, this 6-foot 5-inch 205-pound shooting guard has offers for that number of schools. As mentioned previously Boateng hails from Little Rock Arkansas and enters his senior year at Little Rock’s Central High School. Rivals FutureCast indicates there is a 100% chance he chooses Mizzou over all other offers while fans who voted project the percentage a bit lower. In FanFutureCast they are 90.0% sure Boateng’s school of choice will be Mizzou. As for 247Sports they offer no crystal ball prediction of which school he decides. Despite the number of offers in front of Boateng I believe we’ll discover sooner than later on his decision, it doesn’t matter if its Mizzou or some other school.

A Friday news release was good news for Bronny James. You remember the report he’d suffered cardiac arrest at practice and was rushed to the hospital. He spent three days before being discharged, since he was admitted the only news we heard or saw was encouraging but certainly nothing related to his recovery. Tests reveal Bronny has a congenital heart defect, I guess for now no surgery is required. He’s been given medical clearance to resume normal activity, that activity we guess would include playing basketball. “Bronny James will be able to return to the basketball court at “some future date” the release read. For now that’s no basketball this season, as for next year that might be a different matter.

I’ve mentioned my problem viewing west coast NBA and college games in their entirety. Well this is the opposite dilemma from late night basketball. I wanted to check out the Group Phrase of the U.S. match in the FIBA games. The game was being played in the Philippines, it’s 11 hours ahead of us in the U.S. Central Time Zone. It began at 7:30 a.m. Central Time, needless to say I didn’t see the game against New Zealand only highlights. The final score in Manilla was Team USA 99 New Zealand 72. Now that I have this information it’s likely the balance of FIBA play will be recorded on my DVR.

It must be difficult

You ask the question what is difficult, it must be demanding being Stephen A. Smith? We can state in truth “rarely are you incorrect on any position you spout on television or your podcast.” Even when it appears someone or several someone’s have a different opinion this is your response. You go on one of your usual rants loudly proclaiming your take is the only one possible. Want an example, I will gladly provide it. SAS proclaimed, “Lonzo Ball cannot stand up without assistance.” SAS claimed he’d been given this information by inside sources. We know this next bit of information from Bulls management, they announced Ball will miss the 2023-24 season. As for me I prefer to wait on the medical staff and athlete before any declaration and its clear why.

With no medical expertise on my part it would be pure speculation for me. SAS’s assessment of must have not set well with Ball, he produced video proof of him standing up unassisted. Ball went even further asking the question where SAS is receiving his information. That was all SAS could take, nobody but nobody contradicts him. He went on a loud rant attacking Ball and “the trolls” on social media who provided their opinion on the matter.” So what does SAS do, he doubles down by claiming “he’d received information from some of the doctors who performed the surgery.” This appeared in the New York Post by Jenna Lemoncelli August 24, 2023. Let’s suppose SAS did receive the information regarding Ball as claimed. SAS is informing us that the medical staff was in clear violation of the HIPPA Law and Privacy Rule. This I believe, I wouldn’t stand to near SAS because his “pants are liable to catch on fire.”

Wow, you don’t say

In the age of the NCAA Championship basketball game being held in football stadiums this might be difficult for some of you to imagine. Did you know Kansas City and iconic Municipal Auditorium served as host for 9 of them, I repeat 9 NCAA Tournament Championship games. And understand this, the arena has been remodeled and can now seat 10,700 for basketball. The auditorium complex opened its doors in 1935, back then in time up to the renovations of 2007 and 2013 the seating capacity was 9,287. To take this story one step further at the time the Kings called Kansas City home this arena served as home court along with the Omaha Civic Center.

The number of open dates prohibited the Kings from securing all the dates, the schedule would be split with Omaha, Nebraska thus the team became the Kansas City-Omaha Kings. Later with a modified schedule all the games were played in the auditorium here, then in 1974 Kemper Arena opened. The Kings began play in the new 16,700 seat arena. As for the Municipal Auditorium complex it’s more than a basketball/circus/concert arena. In addition to college basketball and the NBA several NAIA championship games have been won in the building. Willis Reed and several others of that generation demonstrated their basketball proficiency during NAIA play in Kansas City. In another portion of this huge building is the Music Hall and the name denotes what its principle use is. Also in the complex is The Little Theatre a ballroom with 400 capacity or banquet seating for 225. The large building multiplex at 301 West 13 Street in downtown Kansas City Missouri has quite a basketball history.

Has the network changed or is it me?

Despite the apparent turmoil going on at ESPN it continues to remain a staple in my household. The key difference for me is that I only watch the events. NBA, college or high school basketball even the McDonald’s All-American game. An occasional college football game and selected bowl games. What I barely watch now is studio programming. I hardly ever watch SportsCenter anymore, I can remember a time my evening always concluded with Dan Patrick and Keith Obermann providing me information on the day’s events even though some of the information might not be basketball.

NBA Today or whatever its now called is viewed on occasion, I no longer believe I’m missing anything with the constant change in hosts. The college basketball special programs are much better than the NBA product. When he’s in studio or analyst Dick Vitale is always entertaining. Jay Bilas is one of the sharpest basketball minds in existence, every time he appears I turned up my television just a bit to make sure I’m able to hear his commentary. As for ESPN’s pre-, half-time and postgame programming I manage to miss them all. In truth I cannot say I’m upset with all of the changes made by the Worldwide Leader in sports broadcasting. In closing I guess maybe it’s a little of both, ESPN’s changed but so has my ability to gather sports news.