World Basketball League Isn’t Coming Up Short

To hear the folks in Italy tell it, they not only play great soccer on the Boot -- uh, what World Cup? -- they also play hoops second only to the NBA.

Or so they insisted until a World Basketball League all-star team took a swing through the country last winter and worked over the best Italy had to offer. Some of the scores (120-98, 142-117 and 146-124) while dropping five of six games suggest the home teams weren’t performing in season, which was hardly the case.

“We were the guys playing out of season. And besides being on the road, we went strictly with Italian League referees,” said Steve Ehrhart, commissioner of the WBL, which has made massive strides in two-plus years of play.

Oh no, another renegade league to crowd the sports calendar you might be saying if oblivious to the WBL’s existence.

The league is for players 6-foot-5 and under and, although it harbors delusions of grandeur, they appear within reason and attainable.

“We’re not set up to rival the NBA or as an alternative league like the CBA (Continental Basketball Association),” explained Ehrhart. “We don’t play during the winter; our schedule runs from May through August. We’re attacking the international market and hope to have divisions in Europe and South America soon.”

Maybe the best part of the show is play under international rules which, translated, means the game is much faster, to the point of being furious. Frank Johnson, the ex-Bullet who spent a half-dozen years up-tempoing the NBA game, says it was like playing in slow motion next to the international style.

“Because of height restrictions,” said Ehrhart, “our players must learn to be equally adept at playing guard, forward or center. We toured the Soviet Union two years ago and figured we’d have problems with the height and size of some of the teams there. It’s amazing what (6-4) Alfredrick Hughes (Loyola-Chicago) did against their 7-footers.”

What the in-season and off-season tours by the WBL have done is establish the league internationally and set up a free exchange of games, the results of which count in the regular-season standings. In 1989, for instance, Calgary won the schedule with a 31-13 mark, Youngstown was the playoff champ and international teams from Greece, Italy, Holland, Finland, Norway and the USSR ended up winning just one of 50 games.

“Tell you one thing,” said Ehrhart, “Mike Krzyzewski’s down at Duke presently putting together a team to compete in the Goodwill Games and in the World Championships and they wouldn’t have a chance against our guys. It’s amazing what four or five years experience makes, especially playing the international game.”

Team rosters in Las Vegas, Illinois, Memphis, Erie, Saskatchewan and Calgary are loaded with recognizable names, fine ex-college players stuck in the NBA no man’s land between 6-0 and 6-4. Besides Hughes, David Henderson (Duke), Andre Turner (Memphis State), Willie Bland (Louisiana Tech), Keith Smart (Indiana), Carlos Clark (Celtics), Perry McDonald (Georgetown) and Jamie Walker (Virginia Union) were all-league last year. Perry Young (Mount Hebron and Virginia Tech) plays for Calgary, Keith Gatlin (Maryland) is in Saskatoon, Rod Foster (UCLA) and Delray Brooks (Providence) form Erie’s outside threat and Chip Engelland (Duke) hit more than 50 percent of his three-point heaves for Calgary last season.

“Continuity, that’s the key to the WBL maintaining progress,” said Ehrhart. “Some of the stars -- Hughes, Bland, Turner, Freddie Banks -- have found a home with us and the fans have reacted positively to their loyalty.

“Of course the guys still have hopes of maybe catching on with the NBA; who wouldn’t with the salaries being paid? At the same time, as the years go by, a man becomes more realistic and I can see the day when playing in the WBL will be an end in itself.

“The pay is better than the CBA and we don’t play as many games, players getting $15,000 for 44 games. They can pick up another $2,000 going on a tour. This fall, we have a tour to France lined up and we usually do three or four of these.

“The features of the first half of our third season have been the way Saskatoon has adopted its team ... hoops wasn’t supposed to go over on the prairies .. . Youngstown setting a pro record with its 34 straight home victories, the good progress in all cities and the way we’ve come to be accepted internationally.

“In the beginning, one of the problems was just getting the players to sit down and listen while we explained what we are. Now, they’re among our best promoters.

“What my travels have shown me is that basketball translates to television better than soccer. I don’t want to make it sound as if I’m knocking that game, but as television moves from governmental control to the private sector in the European countries, hoops is going to become more and more popular.”

And there’s the WBL pioneering its way along with a Loyola Marymount style of play that’s been knocking ‘em dead from the Urals to Gibraltar.