So the seating situation needs some work. Let’s start with that much.
The Australian basketball stage had never been bigger, with Team USA taking a 14-hour flight from Los Angeles this week to continue its FIBA World Cup exhibition tour in a place where they love hoops and had long since earned this kind of spotlight. But hosting more than 50,000 fans inside a Melbourne venue that is typically reserved for soccer and cricket proved problematic, and so the social media fallout ensued after Thursday’s game when many of the paying customers complained that, well, they couldn’t actually see the Americans beating the local boys 102-86 in the first of two matchups.
Yet even with that unfortunate subplot, good luck getting Joe Ingles to stop smiling this week.
Of all the Aussies who were ecstatic about this historic set of games, and about what it might mean for the prospect of getting a well-deserved NBA visit one of these days, none had more reason to beam…
