Basketball On The Internet.

WHEN the dust settles on Townsville's situation, like many basketball lovers, the manner in which Basketball Australia disrespected Crocodiles chairman George Colbran on Monday still will not sit well.

It would not have been easy for him to pull the pin on the Crocs continuing in the NBL under the auspices of Barrier Reef Basketball Pty Ltd, especially after sinking millions into the team.

Maybe the way the Crocs did it caught everyone with their pants down but I am a believer that those people who buy into our game and then support it with cash earned elsewhere, deserve to be respected and treated with dignity.

I don't care if we're talking Colbran, Owen Tomlinson, Vince Marino or Eddy Groves.

You reach into your own pocket to help preserve our national league and help ensure its survival, my toupee is off to you.

By now we all know how events transpired on Monday but, on the off-chance you don't, here's a quick recap.

Unexpectedly, though the club's finances have been perilous for many years, on Monday Colbran revealed he would be returning the Crocs' licence to BA and withdrawing from the 2013-14 NBL season.

BA reacted with chief executive Kristina Keneally saying the Crocs had not met required conditions - nine months' notice and providing proof of insolvency (imminent or otherwise) - and therefore would not accept the surrendered licence.

This is where it gets ugly.

The owners had a scheduled meeting of their own in Sydney which they then asked Keneally and PLOCH (general manager of Professional Leagues and Operations, Chuck Harmison) to attend, to get the skinny on the Townsville situation.

Keneally, who had been keen to have a tele-conference anyway, told me she was equally keen to see the owners.

"We didn't know what they might know,'' she said, adding her political background made her wary of whether there was some "Machiavellian play'' underway.

In such circumstances, Keneally said, she preferred to be able to "eyeball people''.

Fair enough.

Publicly, Keneally and BA mid-Monday afternoon announced they would not accept the licence return so when she ordered Colbran out of the owners' meeting, it made no sense.

As I wrote in "The Empire Strikes Back'' yesterday, you can't have it both ways. If you have publicly stated you are not accepting the licence surrender, then Townsville (and its chairman) is entitled to attend the owners' meeting.

You cannot then say they will have no further say in the NBL's future and throw them out.

Keneally told me the other owners all agreed Colbran had to be banished from the meeting.

Sorry, but that's not what I am hearing.

"She sat down and kicked him out,'' is what I was told by a meeting attendee.

"It was as simple as that. After she kicked him out, we all somewhat agreed he shouldn't be there but that was based on the assumption his licence WAS accepted back.

"But it wasn't.''

There you have it.

So the question again remains: Is that how leadership should conduct business?

KNOW I show my age with this but I still believe BA has and had a moral obligation to do all in its power to support any one of those seven clubs which saved the NBL's exposed and dangling butt back in 2009.

When the Adelaide 36ers, Cairns Taipans, Gold Coast Blaze, New Zealand Breakers, Perth Wildcats, Townsville Crocodiles and Wollongong Hawks stared down Melbourne Tigers owner Seamus McPeake and said they would soldier on as a 7-team NBL, they earnt and deserved Basketball Australia's lifelong support, respect and commitment.

They don't put it all on the table and gamble for the preservation of Australia's elite basketball competition, and we don't have one now.

The Tigers were threatening to depart with South Dragons as almost daily the league careened from one disaster to another crisis, then lurched toward chaos.

But the Magnificent Seven hung tough, McPeake blinked, the Tigers came back and, for a little while at least, we had a competition with the illusion of stability.

The Sydney Kings' return added to that, before Gold Coast's departure last year shook it up all over again.

And here we have the Crocs, who have survived since the age of the dinosaur, now facing extinction.

TOWNSVILLE is rallying magnificently and if you are in that area and anywhere near Wulguru, head to the Crocodiles Club there for a meeting at 6.30pm today.

The Crocs' 2012 London Olympian Peter Crawford has tweeted Townsville fans, requesting you come along, bringing family and friends to discuss the current situation and plans for the future.

Wear some Crocs gear!

#savethecrocs

WITH all that has gone on this week - do we have an NBL Grand Final game coming up at all? - it would be easy to overlook or forget about the NCAA men's final.

Louisville's Cardinals beating Michigan's Wolverines for the college basketball crown 82-76 was one of the best games I've ever had the bliss to watch.

All that is great about our game - the skill, the passion, the drama, the spectacular, the stories-within-stories, the unlikely hero etcetera - was on show and if you missed it, find a copy of it somewhere.

It will be the best two hours you will spend watching basketball for a long time.

BULLEEN surprised a lot of people when Guy Molloy was announced its new WNBL coach this week.

Not that Guy isn't a perfect fit. It's just that many - myself included - had the Final Four candidates down to Peter Buckle, Cheryl Chambers, Gary Fox and Larissa Anderson.

Last seen at Ballarat coaching the SEABL's Miners, Molloy has paid his dues a few times over now, with previous NBL and WNBL stints.

My (e)mail tells me more than a few WNBL free agents are on the move too, with Dandenong duo Steph Cummings and Tegan Cunningham Queensland-bound, to Townsville and Logan respectively.

Dual-league MVP Suzy Batkovic is already at the Fire and more movement is expected at the Boomers and Rangers yet.

Champion Bendigo also is looking to replace retired forward-centre Chelsea Aubry.

Stay tuned.

JUST in case you were wondering, Sydney Kings centre Ian Crosswhite pleaded guilty to striking Breakers forward Will Hudson and was fined $500 by the NBL Tribunal.

Crossy admitted he unintentionally struck the back of Hudson's head with his elbow as he swung to free himself during Game 2 of the semi-final series.

PLOCH charged him over the incident, which occurred during the first quarter of the Kings' 88-99 loss.

 

HAVING checked, I can assure readers there is absolutely no truth whatsoever to the rumor that as soon as news leaked Townsville Crocs had folded, Marty Clarke rang the 36ers, exclaiming: "No, it was a four-year plan... a FOUR-year plan...''

...

What?

...Too soon?