College hoops go overboard with military games, miss boat in Germany

REGENSBURG (David Hein’s Eye on the Future) – College basketball made huge headlines – and great photo spreads – in November of last year when Michigan State and North Carolina played on the Carl Vinson aircraft carrier off Coronado Island.

On Friday, Michigan State University (MSU) get another taste of the U.S. military as they tip off the NCAA season against Connecticut at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The problem is that too many other universities are trying to get into the act and losing the mystique of it all.

It’s all – pardon the pun – going overboard.

The MSU-UConn showdown – billed the 'Armed Forces Classic' – is just one of five college games on Friday with a military feel.

The Carrier Classic is a double-header with Notre Dame playing Ohio State in women’s hoops and the Ohio State men taking on Marquette later in the day on the deck of the decommissioned carrier Yorktown – which is now a museum in South Carolina.

The Battle on the Midway has Syracuse facing San Diego State on the deck of the decommissioned carrier Midway – also a museum in South Carolina. And Florida will battle Georgetown in the Navy/Marine Corps Classic on the deck of the amphibious assault ship Bataan in Jacksonville, Florida.

Of course, the reason for the game is to commemorate the U.S. military men and women with Veterans Day taking place on Sunday in the United States.

But more is not necessarily better. And what will the start of the season look like next year – will every decommissioned carrier start calling universities asking for games? The shots from last fall were amazing on the Carl Vinson.

Of course more people want part of the pie, but what’s next? Remember Roger Federer and Andre Agassi played a tennis exhibition on a tennis court 1,000 feet in the air at the top of the Burj al Arab hotel in Dubai?

While it’s exciting for NCAA basketball fans in Europe to know that a college game will be played on their continent, it’s not like many people could even watch the Spartans-Huskies game live – since it’s on the Ramstein Air Base, the home of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe and a NATO installation.

The game will likely be played in front of about 2,500 to 3,000 enlisted men and women and some civilians – encouraged to wear Air Force-affiliated attire – in an aircraft hangar.

While the NBA and NFL have played regular season games in London and Major League Baseball opened its 2012 season in Japan, this will be college basketball’s first regular season game on European soil. The effort, however, is hardly a move to gain fans in Europe in general and in Germany in particular.

Actually, the NCAA in general and the University of Connecticut in particular really – pardon another pun – missed the boat on this game.

Connecticut has become in some ways Germany’s adopted NCAA team with three Germans on the team – Niels Giffey, Enosch Wolf and Leon Tolksdorf. UConn could have played this game on the Ramstein Air Base and planned another showdown a day later against Michigan State in nearby Mannheim or Frankfurt or even in Berlin – the home city of both Giffey and Tolksdorf, who both were in the Alba Berlin system before heading to UConn.

That would have been a real good will effort to push the game in Germany and Europe – and then in later years in other countries or continents.

Hats off to Michigan State and Connecticut for commemorating their military men and women – but they missed the boat on promoting the game.

David Hein

FIBA

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