OK, we can probably all agree that the USA has been the center of the basketball universe since . . . forever. Notice that the NBA winners are called world champions, even though 29 of 30 teams are from the same country. The sport wasn’t officially included in the Olympics until Berlin in 1936 and then the games were played outdoors on a clay tennis court. That was eight years after Butler University in Indianapolis was driven to build a giant and stately new fieldhouse, mostly to have room for the mammoth crowds of the state high school tournament.
Yet the game has had an international flavor from the time the first shot bounced off the first peach basket. Remember, the guy who invented it was a 5-10 physical education teacher from Canada.
📈 SCOREBOARD: All DI men’s basketball scores
When the United Nations sponsors World Basketball Day on December 21, it will be celebrated on a planet united by the love of dunks and 3-pointers, if not a lot else. America might be hoop’s hottest bed, but the world long ago joined the game and now is fully engaged. There are gobs of examples.
Dr. James Naismith’s idea, born in a Massachusetts YMCA in 1891, is not that old, as sport goes. The day he first came up with 13 original rules for basketball, there had already been 31…
