I think Boti is away on Holidays. Hence Zac Milbank doing the basketball article today.

It's not that Maher played for Sturt, it's that he's more of a "name". Virtually no one reading The Advertiser knows who Scanlon is today and won't really care tomorrow - unfortunately that's just how it is.

Not to come across as trashing the guy because he's having an outstanding season, but ABA just gets no coverage.

Another thing to remember (forget for a minute that he's on holiday) is that a lot of what Boti writes doesn't make it in, and the pieces that do are often heavily edited.

I think Boti pushes hard for coverage but there's only so much that he can do. I remember the Sports Editor of the paper saying over the Easter weekend that his time at The Advertiser was something like "95% AFL, 5% dealing with Boti".

Shouldn't matter who it was that scored 50, it rates a mention. If I wasn't playing and was a fan of basketball or sport in general and read that a player scored 50, I would want to go out and see what type of player this person is. If I read about Brett Maher scoring 13 points, I would think to myself, so he should score 13 points, he should be scoring 37 points like Ng. (I really hope i'm not going to jinx myself here and have Brett come out and score 37 or 50 on us this week!!!)

I'm not disagreeing, I'm just saying that they have their reasons. Write a letter to the editor if you want.

Well i am going to make another comment about our girls over in America Laura and Erin, we already know that Lauren Jackson is a super star we don't need a big write up about it, but how about letting us know how our girls went, i am sure that Laura didn't just score 5 points and Erin 8. Come on this is Adelaide we want to hear about our girls.

So as a basketball fan your saying that you were impressed by Brett Maher's 13 points and that now you'll go out and watch him play???

I think you should start up The Panther Times and give the media giants a bit of a scare.

Front page would of course be Scanlon en route to his half-century. World News would cover your treaty for papal recognition of Scanlon's wonder-score. The business section might talk about the global media opportunities available to said player. The Sports pages would be articles covering the game from every angle, including a timeline of every taken shot. And then there would be Panther (Confidential) with all the gossip about you supposedly giving John Lawrence a lift somewhere mysterious!

Ha ha ha, I was just being a nice guy.
Not everything would be about Scans, geez his head's big enough already!
Hey I gave Darren Ng a plug!

All up, I would like to see a one-third page each Monday devoted to ABA. Quick rundown of highlights, results and top 5 stats in key categories. Won't happen because barely anyone cares compared to the coverage for AFL and soccer. If people cared, you'd get more than show up to the average ABA game now.

Its simple why Brett's results were in the paper...WE CARE...he is the captain of the 36ers, Our local NBL team...The aba? is merely there as a feeder for the nbl, Perhaps you can tell me all the results from the local soccerleague etc.. no?..you know why?..WE DONT CARE.

Get over yourselves aba players, if you aint in the NBL, then who cares.

I never could get the hang of Tuesdays

Geez Me, u got a lot of anger inside.

yes..i even frighten myself..hehehe...but..why werent the 36ers faithful there? Let me try this again, its not the 36ers..so..we dont care!

82846 - was it mentioned in the paper prior to the game?

Sturt are not known for getting big crowds either. I think there might've even been more Centrals fans who made the trip down.

God Panther....who cares about Damien Scanlon...????

No one. Mind you if you jack up enough shots over enough games you are bound to land some at some stage. I would say that it probably runs in the family. Having Brett Maher play and get 13 pts is far more newsworthy than...who? Cant remember.

If you don't find a player scoring 50 points something that is an outstanding achievement then you are not a real basketball fan.
To say who cares about the ABA is utterly stupid and moronic. Where do you think your almighty Brett Maher first started playing basketball? District. Then what is your next step as a player, Senior Basketball, then you aspire to NBL. Every player needs a starting block and ABA is one almost every single player in the NBL has needed.
Let me guess...you go for the Crows but never support SANFL?
Without one you can't have the other. Soon enough the NBL won't financially be able to survive and all you will have left is the ABA, so won't will you do then???

Ok and what league does the SEABL fall under these days smart ass???
Let me guess...he played for Sturt in the "State" League as well when he was younger, but didn't play ABA till only a couple of years ago????

south junior too, go panthers! mahersy knows where his roots are even if most of the uneducated, post 1995 abl/nbl fans don't.

i like the dig some anon had at the scanlon family too, must have been smacked by the elder bro back in the day!! i love this stuff, bring back more rivalries!!

also special mention must go to adam benson for his 3 points and 2 rebounds on the weekend...what that deserved a mention didn't it?? lets put this baby to rest now people!!

Anonymous (#82991) you are an idiot. Do you seriously think I didn't know this? Considering I have being playing senior mens for quite sometime now and played during every period of time that you mentioned, i'm guessing you only just stepped out of the forrest didn't ya? Welcome to evolution...

I say GO PANTHER - for backing up a team mate and being proud of a team mates effort and making sure that the basketball community knows about it, for taking on all the 'anon' posters who, rather than take JB's point of Scanlon's 50 points being worth a mention, would rather fight him on his mention of Sturt, trying to prove him wrong with facts and figures related to Brett Maher and when, where and why ABL was introduced that are meaningless to his MAIN point of Damians half centuary.

JB - well done on not sitting quiet when you thought Damian's fantastic effort was deserved of a mention and didnt get one, well done on supporting your team mate, well done on hyping up this sport (that in my opinion is in need of hype whenever and however it can get it right now) and peoples acheivments in it..

Regardless of whether its ABL, NBL, NBA, WNBA.. outstanding team and personal acheivments should get a mention whether its in the paper written by Boti or on this website written by a team mate, a fan, a referee.. who cares, shouldnt it just be about the sport and our appreciation for it?

For those of you who mentioned you dont care to read about people you dont know or about a league thats not National, and for those of you who spoke on behalf of all readers of the Advertiser saying they dont care either - well it doesnt hurt to give a plug to a player who has acheived something fantastic, as much as it doesnt hurt to mention a National league player is playing State league - these things promote YOUR state league, which in turn promotes the sport which we can only hope will draw people from their lounge rooms out to courts to watch us play and entices them to spend the money supporting state and national leagues so that we can keep this sport alive..

Well done JB.

Gee Schucks...Thanks me (and no I don't mean myself! LOL)

oh my goodness.. my nickname has been hijacked... the post above was not posted by "me" infact, seeing that panther thanked me, then said not himself, i have serious doubts.

Would the person who stole "me" nickname please return it I would say unharmed, however having read the post above, sadly the damage is done.

Further to the discussion, i am sure that all the nbl players learnt their trade and became the "stars" they are in one of the myriad of local leagues, HOWEVER, i am sure they all started as juniors playing at under 10 level or whatever...and I am not going to watch them either, when they are good enough, they will be recognised in the media.

By the way, if your planning to watch the Australia v Greece game tonight, I hope you have all been to see your local football team playing on a dreary sunday afternoon, oh..or do you really only care about the elite?

"Im me and so is my wife"

Panther / me ( who ever ) local super, premier and state league soccer get better write ups in the Advertiser ( see pg 89 today ) and they are on the same level as our ABL ( that is one step down from the national A League )

It would be good to see an equivalent write up once a week allocated to basketball. They even have local identities ( hmmm ) giving their tips for the weeks upcoming games.

For years local soccer found itself in a similar position as basketball finds itself in now, but after some hard work and a complete revamp of the Associations involved they have managed to unite all clubs and get their act together. Maybe when the sale goes through and BSA gets its act together we can look forward to similar write ups in our daily paper

I'm the solution.

I choreographed the Rugby World Cup here a few years back, currently the mastermind behind Soccer Australia's turn around. Imagine what i could do for basketball!

ps. i'm not really John, but he is a sport 'turnaround' specialist.

Yeah I guess your right...anyone can score 50. There must be at least twenty players in our league averaging those figures! Let me guess, you scored a few of them yourself???

Without reading all of the above posts, no one has mentioned that Scanlon's game acheived the highest HSA of all time.

It was a great all around game which included 7 steals, high % shooting and only 2 turnovers.

This is what deserves recognition as well as the 50 points.

None of that matters doc because Maher had 13 points!

You're missing the point completely.

I don't think anyone's arguing that Scanlon doesn't deserve credit or that we wouldn't like to see some ABL in the paper. The argument is just that the newspaper is for the majority (thus the devotion to AFL and soccer, you know that massive crowd last night?) and the majority care more about Maher than they do about someone they've never heard of before.

The Advertiser isn't there to increase publicity and crowds for the ABA - that's BSA's job - the journalists and editors are there to sell papers.

Following that train of thought ...

i would be more interested in reading about some random kicking a bag of 20 (or the equivalant of 50 pts in b/ball) in the SANFL, than wanganeen getting 15-20 possy's.

And i have very little time for AFL.