Category: basketball

On talking too much, or the NBA Summer League

When I was in graduate school several years ago, the introvert in me – and that would be 100 percent of me – was desperate for some quiet time.

You don’t get much in graduate school. It’s all group projects and collaboration (another overused word! noted for later topic) and covering for That Guy.

I found then that there was one place, one unlikely place, where I could enjoy near-complete silence: my dental hygienist’s chair.

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I’d lay down on the vinyl, in that curiously comfortable decline, and we’d say nothing. I’d close my eyes. I knew when to close my mouth for that tube thing. She might ask if I had summer plans when we were done. Maybe.

I still don’t even know her name. I don’t need to. This is still one of my favorite things to do because there is no talking, and no one feels awkward about it.

I suspect that’s why so many of you cook, or write, or train, or paint: It’s not always a solo pursuit, but it’s quiet.

Desperate for basketball

There’s this Rush song. Maybe you know it. Oh, of course you know it. Everybody knows it – it’s Rush. It’s “Spirit of the Radio.”

And there’s a phrase in it that describes the majority of my basketball viewing, if you can call it that: it’s “a friendly voice, a companion unobtrusive.”

See, there’s quiet, and then there’s isolated. I can do the latter all too quickly.

With basketball, I can turn the volume on low to just barely hear some of the region’s TV announcers, all companions unobtrusive. I can watch it out of the corner of my eye as I exercise for excessive periods of time, something else done perhaps in the pursuit of quiet.

The NBA’s Summer League, while nothing like the NBA or especially college basketball*, would ostensibly fit the bill, yes? Turn the volume down to low. People moving about. No one talking to me, just in my vicinity, the voice just familiar enough.

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Champs…of the Euroleague. Sorry, guys, we know you worked hard, but still

Except.

ESPN, the Satan of sports broadcasting, took over the Summer League two or three years ago. Which means there is constant yapping. I mean, Dan Dakich. Would you shut that whole in the middle of your face? For a second?

I know the answer to this.

NCAA BASKETBALL: JAN 17 Michigan at Wisconsin
FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, DO NOT USE THAT MIC, DAN DAKICH

The NBA does a lot of things right, but man, I’m looking at cricket as an alternative. Cricket! In America! What is this country coming to?

*Wait until November, friends. I will try not to but probably still will bore you to death with Big East basketball. Sorry in advance.

On a lighter note: Big East news

The longer I can keep this up, and the longer you stick around, the more you’ll understand that outside my emotional maelstrom I can talk about normal things. These are my favorite:

  • Making people laugh
  • Boxing
  • College basketball

And specifically, Big East basketball.

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In what’s been the worst-kept secret for about a week it today became official that the UConn Huskies would again be joining the Big East, the conference its administration once felt fine abandoning for its woebegone football program. Well.

I don’t know if the same administration has any understanding about sunk costs and throwing good money after bad and things that just aren’t going to happen, like a successful Connecticut FBS football program, but it’s nice to have a founding member of the Big East back home, even if home is now on the side of the street with the big cathedral on it.

The Big East is different now.

I get it though. A Big East alumni who grew accustomed to watching her team play Louisville through various conferences for around 30-odd years, I know it sucks when a serious rivalry goes away in the name of ESPN conference alignment goals.

So to my Big East sister schools who’ve been playing UConn since the early 80s? Freeze ’em out at the Dunk, Cooley. Jay Wright, just do your super-model thing. Georgetown, if you could pull one out, that’d be great. Make them as welcome as ever in Jersey, Seton Hall. St. John’s, um, I kinda don’t know what to say to you right now.

Or vice versa! It’s great either way. Plus, I’m looking forward to seeing UConn play new foe Xavier. That’s probably gonna hurt for a while.

Women’s basketball

Here’s where UConn really helps the Big East basketball product if it doesn’t eat it alive first.

It’s not as though the better women’s teams aren’t spread out anyway, but only two have stood out of late in the Big East: DePaul, which does nothing else right, and Marquette, which has two state-of-the-art athletic facilities across the street from each other. Which is to say, the women’s game may have improved there despite what Marquette hasn’t done for it.

With UConn women’s basketball in the fold, shining a big bright Maglite on how little gets put into women’s sports everywhere but there, we may see some additional resources allocated to the women’s game.  I’d like to think so. The Big East might be focused exclusively on basketball, and that’s great for those of us who could care less about football. But it’s the men’s game. And see, women play basketball, too.

I watch a lot of boxing, including (or especially) women’s boxing. Unlike many of the men (Anthony Joshua?), I’ve not seen one woman boxer lack heart. They all want to win. Bad. Man, do they work. (Same’s true for women MMA fighters, if that’s your gig.) But training resources? There’s a wide gulf between a lot of them, and it shows up in skill and entertainment value.

Imagine what women’s basketball might look like if more were invested in it nationwide. Or just conference-wide. If there was a palpable sense that the NCAA, university and fans cared. By “palpable,” of course, I mean American dollars. The outcomes may never be the same. The product may never be as “good” as the men’s game. It’d be nice to have the opportunity to judge for myself.

Welcome, UConn!

Ok, enough time on the soapbox. Bring your heathen fans, UConn! Bring your mean women’s team, tall in their black hats, to kill us all! Bring your rebuilding men’s team which, no doubt, is on the way up. Get Shabazz Napier to some of the games – I always liked that guy. Any lacrosse? Bring your bad grammar to our small-school message boards. A good time will be had by all, I know. Here’s to 2020-21! It can’t get here fast enough.