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Sad but True

March 31, 2007 - American Basketball Association (ABA)
Texas Tycoons News Release


Barre, VT - The 2006-2007 Championship had much more intrigue leading up to its illustrious championship game then the game itself unfortunately. Here is the true story about the ABA championship. The league had announced earlier in the season that the final 8 remaining teams in the playoffs, the great 8, would be played at one location. The Texas Tycoons organization was informed that it would be held in Los Angeles and then later in the season their was talk it could be held in Alabama but neither would prove true. The league decided, after the hosting teams involved decided to back out of hosting the championship tournament, to instead have the games simply played at the higher seed based on a ranking system that proved to be much more complicated than simply a won-loss record. But the thought was that the games would be decided on the court and that ultimately each team still controlled their own destiny. Home court advantage in the ABA this season turned out to be a little different than what is commonly thought.

As a #3 seed, Texas was rewarded for their undefeated record against the team ranked 15 consectutive weeks as #1, rewarded for only losing 5 games all season, rewarded for defeating Quad Cities and Beijing in the playoffs with a trip to the ABA championship. What more can a team ask for? Texas had 5 losses going into the game and Vermont had 6. Vermont had played more games due to the fact that Texas had an Arkansas team that folded in their division and that proved to be one of the major deciding factors for the league this season in the power rankings and that was number of games played. Conventional wisdom would suggest that if a franchise lost out on revenue from hosting games and the league did not replace those games with other opponents that the league wouldn't add insult to injury and actually penalize the team for not having those games but true enough, check with the power rankings; number of games played is an actual factor as reported by the ABA Director of Operations Brad Hester. The league doesn't specify that the team is only penalized if they choose not to play a game but in fact teams are also penalized if someone on their schedule or in their division doesn't live up to their committments and folds during the year leaving them with less total games played, and the ABA often doesn't always replace the lost games on the schedule.

With the ups and downs of minor league sports, a team has to roll with punches sometimes, and ultimately it comes down to two teams lacing them up and playing 48 minutes on 10 foot rims. Everything else is unimportant comparingly, true? False. The league's #1 seed Vermont Frost Heaves decided that if they won their semi-final with Welmington on a Tuesday that they would have the league championship game played in their arena on Thursday and their wasn't anything the ABA would do about it. Forget about using a few days to properly promote the league's top game or at least having the feature game played on the weekend. The league, after being informed by the Frost Heaves that the only date they had to schedule a championship was on a Thursday two days after their semi-final, informed Texas on Sunday that if Vermont did indeed win their semi-final that Texas would need to find a way to travel the following day or forfeit. Texas, having already defeated Beijing to earn their way to the league's spotlight event, waited for the late Tuesday night outcome. The team's travel agency was careful to alert Texas that same day travel for a large party of 15 to a smaller town like Barre, Vermont would prove interesting but could be done. A seat reservation for each of the passengers requires payment and paying for plane tickets to Vermont before the team would even know if the Frost Heaves would in fact win and host the final wasn't the solution either. So Texas would wait, communicating with ABA CEO Joe Newman and Director of Operations Brad Hester along with Frost Heaves owner Alex Wolff that same day travel for a large party to a small city would be very difficult and that the championship game deserved the best each team could offer, the fans deserved it too.

The travel agent turned out to be correct, the Tycoons could send 6 players or 5 players and a coach on a late flight Wednesday night with the rest of the team spending the night in an airport, Denver and New Jersey being a couple of the options or the team could fly together on game day. The Tycoons once again petitioned to the league and Frost Heaves owner that the game could not be played that quickly but to no avail. Texas purchased their game day flights departing from DFW airport at 6am championship day. The 4:30am check-in at the airport got everyone up in the middle of the night at 3am. Texas spent sixteen (16) hours from 3am to 1 hour before tip-off just getting to Barre, Vermont. The first flight from Dallas to Philadelphia followed by another flight from there to Boston followed by several hours on a 15 passenger van provided kindly by Vermont to take Texas the rest of the way.

Asked about the events leading up to the big game, Head Coach Chris Terrell of the 25-5 ABA Finalist Texas Tycoons said "I've been involved with minor league basketball for quite some time but I've never seen anything quite like what happened today. I can understand the team wanting the advantage of making us travel before the game but why would the league allow them to do it to this extreme? It's not like we knew we would have to go anywhere until Wednesday and getting 15 guys to some small town in Vermont same day proved impossible. Ultimately the ABA CEO didn't attend and the DBO came in at half time with a don't worry speach but they've cheated both teams, the fans, and the league in the process. My guys wake up at 3am on game day and spend two (2) full work days (16 hours) just getting to the game an hour before tip-off but if we didn't do it they were going to make us forfeit. My players were asking me if we could just delay the tip-off an hour or two so they could take a quick nap and a shower and what I asked them to do by playing in that game, I just don't feel right about it. 16 hour travel by 2 planes and a bus starting at 3am probably is medically unsafe in a sport like basketball. A player runs an average of 3-5 miles in a game, I can't speak for other sports but basketball is like a marathon run in a series of sprints and all they wanted to do was get some rest. We asked Vermont and the ABA on 7 seperate occassions if a properly planned league championship with dates posted in advance and where teams could be present with their owners was the right way to do it and all agreed. But unfortunately Vermont said it was the only day they could get their gym and the league wouldn't do anything about it. I have a tremendous amount of respect for their team, their players, and their coach and I hope that trying to improve some things in this league doesn't make them feel like they should have an asterisk next to their season. They're a terrific team and to be completely honest if I told them they were playing us in Dallas tomorrow and they spent 16 hours trying to get to Texas, which trust me is easier than getting to Barre, Vermont; I don't know if we beat them by the same score. The game was 42-18 in the first quarter, we felt like we couldn't get a call from the North-East referees, and the cow bells or whatever they ring in Vermont was giving me a headache but all of the above was indeed the intention and lesson learned. We beat Beijing, who had beaten Buffalo, who earlier in the season had beaten Vermont but I don't want to play 6 degrees of seperation, I just wanted a some what level playing field that was medically safe to all involved. My guys got the opportunity to have a fantastic season and compete all the way to the championship game but today was just not going to be our day and unfortunately a lot of people had it set up that way on purpose." Terrell continued "In the end we are extremely proud of our season, advancing further than 51 other teams that started out this year but if some things don't drastically change with the organization of the ABA, we will go in another direction. After all the problems, the ABA just wanted to get this season over and giving all the control to one team without guidelines and boundries that all teams play by cheated the game of basketball and both teams and the fans today and I want the whole world to know about it because you cannot have positive change without the truth. This is more to do that just the one day, their is much that needs correction. When these guys go on from here they will have learned from the adversity and we will be that much more appreciative of the opportunities at the next level. I owe our players, management, ownership, fans and just as importantly the other thousands involved in this league, the truth. I hope some positive change will come of it."

The ABA league meetings are scheduled for April 13th and 14th. Several teams that started this season didn't finish it for different reasons and those meetings will go far to decide the outcome with Texas and several other very successful franchises. You can get more information by visiting www.usbasket.com, www.oursportscentral.com, www.abalive.com, and www.txtycoons.com.

Note: OurSports Central no longer actively covers the American Basketball Association (ABA) as a professional league due in part to its inability to publish and play a schedule and the transitory nature of many of its teams. For information on professional minor leagues, please see OSC's basketball section.

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The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

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