Basketball On The Internet.

NO-ONE knows what on Earth possessed the NBL to schedule a 36ers game in Adelaide last night because no-one at the club requested or wanted it.

The idiocy of scheduling a match on a night when the host city's team knows it is a doomed experiment it wanted no part of, is evident enough.

Because it's not as if the 36ers didn't try to make it work.

Having endeavoured to stage as many value-for-money double-headers as possible this season with the WNBL's Lightning, this was one such occasion when even that additional incentive was not going to pay off.

Tipping the Lightning-Dandenong game off at 5pm is lunacy enough on a Friday. But on a Thursday?

Forget it.

It works as a Saturday evening timeslot and even can work on a Friday - to a small extent - because everyone knows the last day of the working week (for those still working 9-5, Mon-Fri) is the one when the clock is being watched and fans are out the second it ticks 5pm.

But here's the rub.

Scheduling on a Thursday in Adelaide was just plain dumb.

The WNBL game featured one of the league's top drawcards in Cappie Pondexter at Dandenong.

Pondexter (pictured) has the WNBA equivalent career credentials of a past NBA star of the Hakeem Olajuwon or Jason Kidd ilk.

If we had someone such as that playing in our NBL - while still an NBA starter - we would have every news service in the country fighting over themselves for daily stories.

That's where Pondexter rates on the world women's basketball stage.

(OK. Because I inserted the word "women's" into that previous sentence, we knows sports services in this country are no-where near as excited, but outdated news attitudes to women's sports is a separate issue.)

The issue here is one of the WNBL's biggest drawcards got to strut her stuff in front of a handful of diehards instead of the crowd she would have drawn in the same slot on a Saturday.

Naismith knows it can be hard enough to drag fans to a WNBL fixture at times. But with a name such as Pondexter, this was just a crying shame.

The return to Adelaide of 36ers such as multiple MVP winner Adam Ballinger, 2002 championship team member Oscar Forman, last season's Grand Finalist Gary Ervin and a Brad Hill who was born and bred here and been a Sixer on two separate stints, made Wollongong a more attractive opponent than Cairns, which opened the season at Adelaide Arena.

But by night's end, 4,176 had made it to the venue - still a great crowd for some and probably one the 36ers would have been happy about, under the circumstances.

But why were these circumstances even necessary?

I thought when the NBL reclaimed self-governance ahead of the 2013-14 season, it would be mindful and protective of the health and wellbeing of its eight participant clubs.

And that means if Thursday night games in Auckland are a winner, that's when you schedule them.

If an 11am game on a Sunday in Perth works for that market, by all means, give them that slot if they want it.

But to randomly schedule a Thursday night fixture in a market where it isn't requested or wanted, surely is the NBL being bloody-minded in a manner which even reflects well on its previous administration at Basketball Australia!

This is an instance where the WNBL, in trying to accommodate Adelaide's wishes, in fact did the Lightning - and Dandenong - a disservice.

It being a Thursday night, the Rangers could not put their best foot forward, teenage starting centre Lauren Scherf unable to make the trip due to the fact she has Year 12 exams.

Could she have played today or on a Saturday?

Of course.

So Dandenong loses 63-68 and in a competition as even as the WNBL appears this season, that one result may yet be of massive consequence.

So instead of actually looking out for their teams, the NBL got it completely wrong by scheduling the match for a Thursday in Adelaide, and the WNBL did too by agreeing to a double-header on a non-basketball night and in a ridiculous timeslot.

It meant more fans missed seeing Luke Schenscher (pictured between former Sixers Oscar and Adam) have one of his most memorable games as a 36er, than might otherwise have seen it.

It's not as if it was on FTA television or anything.

It also meant less time for Hawks import Jahii Carson to recover from an illness which kept him to one practice last week and which had him throwing up in the toilets at halftime and ineffective thereafter.

Thursday. Ugh.

Now before those of you with better memories email to remind me that back when I was "crystal balling" the NBL's future, I came out on the side of midweek games, I would also remind that it was with a couple of caveats.

One of those was the league would have all of its games being shown on FTA television, making the broadcast rights the key and not the attendances.

(That also would have allowed for smaller venues, the emphasis on the live TV audience).

And the other caveat was that BEFORE going to any such midweek plan, the league should trial a few games on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

And that any such trial should occur in JANUARY, when schoolkids are on holidays, and so too teachers, for that matter.

Not just kids though. Of the 12 months of the year, January is the one most considered "holiday time" in Australia.

It's a time many businesses are still in wind-down mode from Christmas-New Year and social activities on a weeknight - especially if fixtures have early tip-offs such as a 7pm - could be workable.

But try it first.

This was the season to do that and, of course, it hasn't happened.

Except in Adelaide.

On a Thursday.

In October.

And with a double-header.

Just stupid.

 

Online match reports

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/basketball/scheer-delight-for-adelaide-lightning-as-import-shines-and-laura-hodges-delivers-to-derail-dandenong/story-fnii09gt-1227101026005

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/basketball/adam-gibson-leads-adelaide-36ers-to-9473-win-over-wollongong-hawks-after-great-third-quarter/story-fnii09gt-1227100415266