FIBA Americas as predictable as its paltry ticket sales

This is a town of buzz. Anticipation. Enthusiasm. Boring plays about as well here as a crooked card game. Predictable is as welcome as more roadwork on U.S. 95.

Which brings us to the FIBA Americas Championship, which has produced the buzz of a librarians’ convention.

You should be surprised at the meager level of local interest only if you are of the viewpoint that Tim Donaghy didn’t truly intend to fix NBA games and that UNLV football coaches really do prefer to start the season with a quarterback who has thrown as many Division I passes as my 6-year-old daughter.

“I don’t think this tournament was an easy sell,” said Jerry Colangelo, managing director of the U.S. national team. “I think the crowds have been pretty good when we have played. I didn’t expect a sellout.

“I think the second-round (games) could be better, and I expect if we are in the semifinals and finals next weekend, we should do quite well. People who have come to see us seem to have enjoyed it.”

Yep. All 7,000 of them.

That’s about how many showed up on average to watch the Americans treat four preliminary-round games at the Thomas & Mack Center like the New England Patriots might a scrimmage against your mighty Rebels, including a 113-76 pasting of Brazil on Sunday.

Colangelo is being nice when he speaks of playing next weekend as a possibility. Mitt Romney has a better chance of losing a straw poll in Utah than Kobe Bryant and his teammates do of being defeated here, but the opportunity to witness them qualify for the 2008 Olympics hasn’t encouraged many to rush the doors each night.

Pretournament ticket sales for 10 days were at 40,000, and here’s guessing the walk-up numbers haven’t been to a level as if premium seats were still available for the Rolling Stones an hour before curtain. There are more empty seats than a Saturday afternoon in November at Sam Boyd Stadium.

The tournament is what it is: An average event with a foreseeable outcome. This isn’t a major international competition, where the Americans of late have proved quite proficient at missing enough jumpers against zones to fall short of gold. This is a run-up to a major. This is the Memorial in golf.

Blame the lack of attendance on FIBA. Blame it on the NBA, which has more serious things to fret over, such as having everyone but David Stern’s mailman wrack their brains about what Donaghy might tell the feds concerning other officials and gambling.

Blame it on a somewhat non-existent marketing campaign.

Blame it on ridiculous logic such as this: Through its pre-tournament advertisement, FIBA directed local fans (you know, people who might actually want to attend games) not to a UNLV Web site where tickets could be purchased but rather to its own Web site.

It’s extremely colorful and you can learn cool things about basketball in places like Belize and Aruba, but you weren’t able to buy tickets to this tournament. The average fan wouldn’t dare click his mouse any further.

The fairest reaction: Blame it on nobody.

FIBA events like this don’t normally produce massive gatherings, no matter the host country. The one playing out here was originally scheduled to be in Venezuela, where crowds would have gathered to cheer the host nation and throw objects at the heads of those wearing USA colors.

To suggest low attendance for a FIBA tournament might directly influence Las Vegas eventually being granted an NBA franchise is as shortsighted as those who said violence that erupted during All-Star weekend is a reflection of what would occur if the city ever housed a team. One has nothing to do with the other.

(Besides, the NHL is coming first, anyway).

You have one dominant team here in the U.S. You have another (Argentina) that could have actually presented the Americans some issues had its best players chosen to compete this summer rather than sleep.

You have teams such as Brazil and Puerto Rico with a few good pros. You have other teams with players hoping someone gets a photo of them being dunked on by LeBron James.

It’s why this tournament could be here or in Venezuela or on Mars, and Panama against Uruguay is still going to draw 116 (Our trusty NBA writer, Steve Carp, counted).

It is what it is. The buzz of a librarians’ convention.

Ed Graney can be reached at 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com