The period between the end of the NBA/NHL seasons and the start of college football is such a dead sports period for me. (I have forgotten what it is like to have a competitive baseball team to cheer for in the dog days of summer.)
Fortunately, for a basketball junkie like me, we have the NBA Summer League games to watch, and, in basketball crazy North Carolina, we have the North Carolina Pro Am League.
The NC Pro Am is a yearly NCAA sanctioned league that runs for several weeks in June and July and features many of the players from Duke, UNC, NC State as well as mid-majors like UNCG and NCCU. The league also pulls in stud local high school players as well as the occasional NBA player with ties to the state of North Carolina.
The league is sponsored by Kinston, NC native Jerry Stackhouse, who went on to UNC and a long career in the NBA. Games are played on the campus of North Carolina Central University at the McLendon-McDougald Gymnasium (which seats about 3000). The arena namesake, John McLendon, is a historic figure in the sport of basketball.
The price is right (games are free) and though the parking situation is congested on campus, the league is well run. The style of ball is up-and-down and wide-open, but that is OK.
In NC, you get 3000 folks to come out to watch glorified playground ball on a Tuesday night in the middle of July. Geez, I love living here :-)
Some Observations…
- Incoming North Carolina freshman (and national high school player of the year) Harrison Barnes is going to make a lot of money next June. Dude is scary good.
- A team predominantly made up of NCCU players gave a UNC-dominated team all they could handle in the evening’s most entertaining game.
- Most exciting player, IMHO, that I saw all evening was Johnny Thomas. This kid could barely get off the pine of a middling ACC team in NC State. Gives one an appreciation about how many truly talented basketball players our country produces.
- The “What Were They Thinking Award?” goes to the league organizers who decided that it would be a good idea to pass out tiny souvenir basketballs into the crowd and then were surprised that some of those ended up on the court during play.
Overall a great way to spend a summer evening after work. Is October 15 (and the first official day of hoops practice) here yet?
