Worrying weekend for Cork sides and also for Basketball Ireland with several issues raising their head

IT was a dismal weekend for Cork sides in the Men’s Super league with home defeats for Emporium Cork Basketball and Energywise Ireland Neptune.

UCC Demons halted the rot on Sunday with a home win over Killorglin.

The debate about the current structure of Irish basketball continues to rage and for some of the clubs competing in the Men’s Super League it’s a case of filling their squads with Americans and Europeans.

Without harping on too much about the eighties and nineties in this city when basketball led the way the league was simple with two Americans and 10 Irish players.

For players like Mono McCarthy of Blue Demons and Tom Wilkinson of Neptune their families liked nothing better than attending the Neptune stadium or the Parochial Hall supporting them.

On Saturday last Ballincollig playing under the Cork Emporium Basketball banner hosted University of Galway Maree and were demolished by a side whose make-up is nothing short of a joke to the sport.

The top scorers for Maree were Jarett Haines (32), Joe Junior-Mvuezola (29), Rodrigo Gomez (20) and Zvonimir Cutuk (9) and that is a grand total of 90 points out of the 100 they scored.

The other Galway side competing in the league Moycullen are trying to do it right by blooding Irish players but the result for them sadly is they are still looking for their first win.

To be fair what is a team like Maree doing for the sport of basketball in this country and surely the CEO of Basketball John Feehan needs to wake up and get some fairness back.

All over this country coaches in different counties are assembling academy teams of all ages and to me it’s a total waste of time as many of these players will be long gone from the sport prior to playing in the top tier.

The Victory Scholar idea of bringing an American in and educating them in college whilst playing for a club looked a cost saver but the bottom line is that the standard is nowhere near where it should be at.

Just think about it we have players in this country that would jump at this offer and are far more skilled but have never been given this chance.

The adage “that the faraway hills are greener” springs to mind as many quality Irish players went to play college ball in the States but never returned is an interesting statistic that I am still investigating.

For some strange reason we have people in the sport encouraging young men to go and play basketball in the States without ever thinking about the level of education they can get in this country.

From what I have seen of Victory Scholars in both the Men’s and Women’s Super-Leagues the majority of them are substandard players, but they don’t care they are getting educated at decent universities and it's not costing them a euro.

Basketball needs to get its identity back in this country and the first rule should be that we have three Irish players on the court at all times.

If clubs like Maree and Killorglin want to bring six foreigners in, they can, but they will be rotating two at a time and that will improve the standard of Irish players in the league.

The total raised for the Gareth Blount Go Fund Me page from last Saturday’s Super League game at Neptune was a magnificent €3,656 that included a €302 donation from the Neptune shop.

Tom O’Sullivan in his first season as chairman of Neptune has put positive ideas into the club and they are presently having great attendances at all their games.

Well done to all involved.