At Basketball Daily World, we are intrigued by many facets of this wonderfull game. We love NBA action, but also have great appreciation of European basketball. We enjoy the energy of college game and innocence of high school basketball. For this section, we picked several teams to follow and we will chronicle their games, thier achievements and frustrations. The selection is biased, like every selection - more so by geography and heritage than anything else.

• Boston Celtics - NBA
• Cibona (Zagreb, Croatia) and Partizan (Belgrade, Serbia) - Euroleague, and Adriatic League
• BC Eagles - ACC, and/or Harvard Crimson - Ivy League
• Belmont Marauders - Middlesex League
• Maine Red Claws - NBDL

Basketball Intifada

Last Sunday, the NBA and basketball in general reached a milestone. The All-Star game of 09/10 was played in front of the record crowd of 108,713. It may be true that more fans came to see Shakira than Allen Iverson (here’s a humorous twist), but this game set the bar high and it’s not unimaginable any more that we’ll see a play-offs game in a converted football dome some time soon. Or some future Olympic Games Finals played in front of the 100K crowd. This game compares well with and surpasses most other sport events, even the ones traditionally played outdoors in big stadiums. (The game which still stands alone is the famous soccer game “Maracanaço“ [video, Spanish], in which 199,854 fanatical Brazilians witnessed their country’s loss to Uruguay in the 1950 World Cup, in one of the greatest sports upsets of all time.)

The number of people present doesn’t always equal the intensity of the crowd. The most unusual basketball game I’ve watched, when it comes to the fans, could have been the late eighties match-up between Partizan and Maccabi (Tel Aviv), played in Belgrade. It was one of the loudest, too. I had to show up an hour early because having the ticket didn’t guaranty that I would get in. There was no such thing as my own seat, in stark contrast with my first NBA experience in the Garden in Boston. As soon as I found a decent spot, a good angle to see the game from, I saw a group of maybe 300 rabid Partizan fans who chanted with a very strong accent. Their head gear wasn’t much different from the hats and scarves regular Partizan fans wore. As a visitor to the city, not too familiar with the Grobari rituals (“grave diggers” is what Partizan fans call themselves), I asked the guy next to me who they were and he said: “These are Palestinian students, they come every time we play against an Israeli club.” Read the whole article ->

Watertown runs a basketball clinic at Belmont’s expense

UPDATES:

March 3, 2010 - The debate has been going on for a while at the online edition of the Belmont Citizen-Herald, under the article written after the Belmont – Dracut game.

[Full Disclosure: My son, Luka Ladan, plays for the Belmont Marauders. I've never coached basketball on any level.]

“Winning is like deodorant – it comes up and a lot of things don’t stink.” – Doc Rivers, The Celtics Coach

Not long ago, the Belmont Marauders basketball team was undefeated, 15 and 0. But, they lost two of their last three games, first to Reading, then last night to Watertown. Both these teams are considered serious rivals and getting the wins was extremely important to the team. The game against the Watertown Raiders was particularly important because the team wanted to go into the post season on the wings of a decisive win against a great rival. It all looked possible as Belmont thoroughly outplayed Watertown (watch full game here ) in their first game of the season. This time, the final score was Watertown 57 – Belmont 53.

In my article from January 13th, 2010, titled Big win for Belmont against undefeated Reading, I highlighted what Belmont needed to do differently to get more decisive wins and to prevail in tough situations. When the article came out some people expressed their consternation that I was too pessimistic while the team was winning. I wanted the team not to be oblivious to the “deodorant effect,” to look at their performances objectively, and start fixing problems while there was still time. Read the whole article ->

Four players in double digits

Just to re-iterate my point from yesterday’s article: Belmont blows teams out when four players score in double digits.

Here’s a brief article (more a sentence really), from the Boston Globe about the game.

The final score was Belmont 84 – Stoneham 45. Would this kind of game always work? Passing wouldn’t be that easy in some games, of course, but I will only re-state what I said earlier: Belmont wins in double-digits against any team in the Middlesex League when they pass the ball well and have four players in double digits.

Big win for Belmont against undefeated Reading

Belmont won an important game, maybe the most important game of the first part of this season. Again, they played a tough 4th quarter, and I don’t expect anything but toughness from this team any more. They took over a close game and made it into a blowout. Overall, the team played well, but the final score is somewhat deceiving. I say this mostly because Reading missed 15 free throws. That’s a big hit even for the best teams to take.

Among good things, the inside defense was solid. Reading centers and forwards couldn’t easily score. Belmont hit more than their typical 20% of threes attempted, which helped quite a bit.

Among not so good things, the defense on penetrations was shaky. It looked like Reading guards could get into the paint any time they wanted.

Read the whole article ->

The League Breakdown by Steve Pacheco

On December 23, 2009, Steve Pacheco wrote a column published in the Daily Times Chronicle in which he talks a lot about Randy Parker from Woburn (that’s what the article is about after all), but at the bottom he talks some about other players coming onto the scene. John Dillon and Luka Ladan are singled out from Belmont. Read the whole article ->