photo: slamonline.com

Basketball, broken down to its simplest compound, is about scoring more buckets than the team you’re playing against. The Semi-Automatic refers to players who leave bodies in their wake with their innate ability to get buckets. And few players can truly say that they are, or ever were, on the same level as the man known as “Mao Santa”, aka “The Holy Hand.” Read More »

Name: Troy Dean Nickname: The Myth Ht: 6’1 Wt: 200lbs D.O.B. 9/23/77 Hometown: Madison, Wisconsin Position: Combo Guard

Why do they call him The Myth? Could it be that perhaps the Daze Streetball player/owner brags game mostly found in that non-ball state with the Big Cheeseheads? Yeah…Wisconsin…where its supposedly cold like all the time and nobody plays ball outside of Milwaukee. Pfff…Street basketball is an EPIDEMIC and growing!! Even a state not known for ball, like Wisconsin, has playgrounds and ballers galore.

Okay, okay…even though, hoop heads and historians alike cannot always vouch for Wisconsin in the past, we must look to the present and the future state of streetball. Right now, the dude called Read More »

Verbals: Corey Grooms

The careers of many young athletes begin when they are old enough to walk,often under pressure from parents and coaches. Millions of kids reach for the dream of super-stardom, but few achieve it. Most children know how expensive college can be and many parents find it nearly impossible to pay for tuition, fees, room and board without a scholarship. Striking a balance between competitive sports and having funis hard for children because their future livelihood depends on how well they do in the game of basketball.

The road from urban-America to a college basketball scholarship is full of many obstacles. The biggest challenge for an athlete is coping with the fact that their chances of getting the athletic scholarship are very slim. For example, according to NCAA statistics, only 10 percent (one in 10) of all African-American male students in Division 1 universities are athletes. In other words, most college-age African-Americans do not receive an athletic scholarship which indicates that 90 percent (nine out of 10) of them used their academic preparation in order to get into college. However, the image in the minds of many people is that African-American males use their physical abilities to go to college. This mis-perception is grounded in the skin color profiles that people observe when they watch big-time revenue producing college sports on television. Read More »

photo of the unc’s dean dome: peterkrogh.com

The North Carolina Tar Heels. The legacy of this esteemed college basketball program conjures up words like prestige, championships, class and dominance, along with Hall of Fame names like Michael Jordan, James Worthy and Dean Smith. They’ve won 27 ACC regular season titles, 17 ACC tourney titles, competed in 18 Final Fours and captured five National Championships.

The question that begs to be answered is how did the program ascend to such rarefied heights. Read More »

Photos: Stacey from NYC HOOPS

BK’s Isaiah Whitehead with MVP for Brooklyn

Hiked out to the BK’s Brownsville Recreation Center to get a look at the young uns’ that have been stirring up some serious noise on the city ball front. Seventh grader Jerron Love, the youngest kid I can think of since Skip to be designated a ’streetballer’ by the city, was in there running with the Bronx crew. Three other strong guards: Queens’ Cheyenne Nettleton, Harlem’s Shavar Newkirk and Brooklyn’s Tyrone Johnson represent a guard class that has enough flair to eventually excel on the strength outdoors and indoors like Dyckman MVP Kemba Walker and EBC’s Rising Sophomore sensation DaShawn Suber, who played serious minutes in the EBC “grown man” championship game and will appear in the Jim Couch Reunion Games on Saturday at 4:15 pm at John F. Kennedy H.S. in the Bronx. Read More »

Fans at Late Night with Roy. Photo: Rivals.yahoo.com.

Chapel Hill, N.C.— I’m a sinner. I have betrayed my faith and my family, and nothing I could ever do will change that.

My grandparents graduated from Duke in the 1930s and bleeding royal blue is a tradition I’ve always embraced. To me, Shane Battier, Jason Williams, J.J. Redick and Greg Paulus are gods—they graced the sacred floor of Cameron Indoor Stadium for a combined 15 years and provided me floor-slapping and twine-tickling memories that still give me chills.

It was always my dream to play point guard for Mike Krzyzewski and be that gritty player everyone outside of Durham hated. When I realized by age 12 Coach K wasn’t going to call, I thought maybe I could just go as a student. But by the time I got my first B- in Physics class in 9th grade, I realized that wasn’t too likely either. Read More »

Shortly after graduating from the University of Oregon, Marshall Cho journeyed to New York City on a Teach for America assignment. And it was here, in the Basketball Mecca, where Cho (a former varsity hoops captain in high school) had a roundball revelation. While coaching 8th grade kids at his appointed middle school in the Bronx that winter, he discovered that the game was more than mere Xs-and-Os — it was a vehicle for forging relationships and creating wholesome connections with ballplayers whose backgrounds starkly contrast your own.

Marshall eventually followed his wife to Africa, who was there completing some philanthropic work. To sate his hoops addiction, he erected a hoop in his backyard and kids from his ‘hood visited in droves, galvanized by the pebbled ball’s pitter-patter on the dirt court. Many showed up daily, eager to learn, most of them playing without shoes. This prompted Cho into action, and well, he didn’t stop. Over the next three years, he worked collaboratively with Hoops4Hope, Basketball Without Borders, and constructed courts in Xai Xai and Maputo, Mozambique.

Hit the jump to learn more about Marshall’s philanthropic efforts in Africa. Read More »

adidas Basketball’s 2009-10 is headlined by this paradoxical “It on Me for We” tagline… Well, if anything, it’s a new take on the TEAM concept the Brand With 3 Stripes has been pushing for two seasons. In this debut commercial, you’ll see cameos by Timmy D, KG, Derrick Rose, Josh Smith, and Chauncey Billups.

Check back throughout the week for an in-depth look at adidas’ upcoming footwear and apparel offerings!