Basketball from a fans perspective

“There is no substitution for hustle, and if you don’t hustle there will be substitution”

Tex Winter 

Party of one   

Mizzou Nation was anxious to see transfer Connor Vanover in action Monday night. The Tigers had Arkansas Pine-Bluff as their first match in the 2023-24 season. 90 minutes or so prior to the game we discovered the 7 foot 5 Vanover would not be in action. Not only would he miss this game but Mizzou’s next two as well, was it an injury or something worse. It was the something worse, the NCAA announced Vanover had participated in the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament in the spring. Although he never submitted his name to the NBA (I believe) the NCAA decided to suspend him for participating in the tournament. The archaic NCAA continues to rule with a dark age mentality. Should I return to the Reggie Bush Heisman or the Ed O’Bannon fiasco of the NCAA…no I’ll pass on those stories for now.

This is the same organization that accused Kansas basketball and Bill Self of 5 level one violations the most serious a school could be charged. After years of investigation it became a “time served” penalty. The coach sat down for 4 pre-season games last year that was it, there may have been some additional penalties but certainly nothing of a grievous nature. Later you will read of the Chicago State twins, they played in the Overtime Elite League last season and earned money. When they attempted to enroll and play this fall the NCAA said no, they and their attorneys have filed suit against the NCAA. To confuse the story even further there are two other players at Division I schools who also played at OTE, they have been approved for play. My guess, the twins earned too much money.

Oklahoma State basketball self-reported, the NCAA said okay no tournament for you…in between time Kansas (still under investigation) was allowed to play in the very same tournament. Speaking of money, this portion cannot be documented. I remember reading the NCAA Basketball Tournament makes for 75-80% of the organization’s annual revenue. If you remember the 2020 tournament was cancelled due to COVID, the plague was still rampant in 2021 but the tournament was played, it was played with all teams in the same city. I will save you from asking the question, do I have a problem with the NCAA, you bet I do? The organization is self-serving and rarely offers a ruling in favor of the student athlete. I certainly have more to say however I will stop at this point, I’m a party of one.

Marketing a product

What's on my mind...marketing a product. It's been quite a while since I've been in a marketing class I vaguely remember being taught the idea is to create a need or want in the consumers mind for a product or products. You accomplish this task by heavily promoting the product or products in question, in this instance the product is Victor Wembanyama. As this is written the Spurs have played but a few number of games, despite this fact they have likely exceeded the total of television appearance they made over the past two years on ESPN and TNT.   

What about the marketing part you ask, the marketing would be the French teen Victor Wembanyama. I have no method of double checking this but I believe the Spurs might have had only 4 games televised all of last season and early this season they are close to exceeding that total. The NBA believes it has a product it wants to fully develop and that’s what a national and international television market will accomplish when Wemby shows up on your television screen. I checked the Spurs schedule and through the end of January they will be on a national broadcast 12 times on TNT/ESPN/NBA TV.

Name, Image & Likeness

Before I begin this diatribe allow me to state this fact, I don’t know everything about Name, Image and Likeness. I understood collegiate athletes are now allowed to earn income utilizing their name, or image. Evidently the NCAA is now in agreement with this for the most part…however they have backed up on their position in at least one instance. Twin brothers Matt and Ryan Bewley were 5-star prospects in high school, they decided to play for Overtime Elite which they did.

Recently the Bewley’s attempted to enroll at Chicago State but the NCAA denied them eligibility. Understand this, Rob Dillingham at Kentucky and Stanford’s Kanaan Carlye played for OTE last season yet were allowed to play at the school’s behind their names. I’m not going to attempt to detail the legalese of the matter I’m not an attorney. All I can say is the NCAA is continuing to dispense justice in the same manner…. a decision based on the direction the wind is blowing. By the way the Bewley’s decided to take on the NCAA in court filing a lawsuit against the organization. I will try and update this case based on future court action.

Can’t get too excited

Mizzou beat Arkansas Pine-Bluff 101-79 in the first game of the season on Monday evening. I cannot in good faith project the forthcoming season based on a single game. January 15 or thereabout will provide a much clearer picture of the team’s season. I will only look at the “edges”, one is certainly depth. Mizzou never appeared in dire straits last season in that area, this time around there are plenty of troops. How would they make up for the loss of two NBA players…move Sean East II and Noah Carter into a more prominent role. Mizzou outrebounded UAPB however the number might be a little suspect so I’m just going to say they were okay. I believe a truer test will occur on Friday when the Tigers face those other Tigers, Penny Hardaway’s Memphis team.