News from Arkansas

[Chris]

Hello all. I just stumbled upon this site. My name is Chris Givens, I'm the beat writer for the Arkansas RimRockers for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the statewide (200,000 circ.) newspaper based in Little Rock.

I have been having one heck of a time finding any information at all on other teams in the ABA, and was wondering if anyone out there could provide help. If there are any other beat writers monitoring this forum, we should set up a way to exchange information, stats, etc., from the teams we cover. My email address is chris_givens@adg.ardemgaz.com if anyone would like to contact me. At the very least I need to get some roster and statistical information, as the websites are horrible and team owners, media directors, etc., don't like to answer phones or return messages.

In case anyone is curious about Arkansas, the RimRockers have played three games at Alltel Arena, which has a seating capacity of 18,500. It is where Arkansas played Illinois today, if anyone caught the ESPN telecast.

On opening night there was a legitimate 4,500 people (my bosses actually had me count), the second and third nights it dropped to about 3,000, where I think it will hold steady or rise if the team continues to be successful.

If anyone would like any information, please feel free to post here or email me. Thanks.

[BBall Fan]

Hi Chris and welcome to the board.

I hate to tell you this, particularly if you are becoming a fan of the Rim Rockers, but they seem to be one of the very few legitimate teams in this league.

Many teams do not have websites. In fact, many teams don't even have a venue to play in (Los Angeles, Visalia, Calgary, Cincinnati, etc.). The league likes to add/remove teams as they go. For example, Calgary and Baton Rouge were just added about a week ago and are still supposed to play this year, even though they don't have a venue and other teams have played as many as 7 or 8 games already.

While the Rim Rockers did well on their opening couple of nights, some teams had openers with crowds of 65-200, playing in High School gymnasiums (no, really they did!).

My guess is that there will only be about 25 teams left in this league by the end of the month.

Keep watching these message boards, and also

www.almostbasketball.tripod.com and www.abasite.tk for more info on this league.
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