THE TEN-POINT SHOOTOUT (tiebreakers)
In the event that this event is being played in teams, play one tossup in the event of a tie and call the game in the event of a score change.
1.This arena hosted the 1974 All-Star Game, and serves as the current home of the RatCity Rollergirls. Rainfall dripped through its roof in a game against the Suns in 1986 and necessitated timeouts for ballboys to mop up puddles before the game was called off. It only acquired its current name in 1995, as part of a sale to a Cleveland-based banking organization. It saw a series winner where Tim Duncan hit a last-second layup over Vitaly Potapenko and hosted parts of the 1978 and 1979 Finals for its home team. Its last pro game was a season-ending win over the Mavericks in 2008, although it’s still home to the WNBA’s Storm. It had originally opened as part of the 1962 World’s Fair. For 10 Points, name this arena which once served as home to the Supersonics.
ANSWER: Key Arena (or the WashingtonState Pavilion or the WashingtonState Coliseum or the SeattleCenter Coliseum)
Not a bad question, but pretty dull. I thought the SaltPalace proved much more interesting for the “arenas” part of it all.
2.Peter Vecsey cracked that this player “always had trouble scoring against double teams” after he was busted for soliciting two prostitutes in 1991. This player’s last great game was a 31-point effort in an overtime victory over the Kings in 1994 before his team tanked the remainder of the season. His draft pick was acquired for Don Ford in 1979, and he came off the bench his rookie year in support of Jamaal Wilkes after being the first pick of the 1982 Draft. Known for a signature sweeping one-handed dunk, he wore goggles continually after scratching his cornea vs. the Jazz in 1985, and scored a career-high 40 in Game 4 of the 1989 Finals. That performance is usually overshadowed by his 36-16-10 statline in the deciding game of the 1988 Finals, which earned him a popular nickname. For 10 Points, name this small forward for the Showtime Lakers, remembered as “Big Game James”.
ANSWER: James Worthy (or Big Game James before mention)
We’d had plenty of Lakers-based questions in this set.
3.One issuance of this statement accompanied a half-court game-winner versus the Grizzlies in 2010. This statement has been issued following a thunderous two-handed dunk over Kendrick Perkins, and another over the Rockets’ Patrick Beverly, both delivered by Rudy Gay, while yet another occurred following a Boogie Cousins jumper that rolled in to defeat the Suns in 2014-15. The coiner of this statement partnered in the broadcast booth with former coach Jerry Reynolds, and hosts a radio show with a segment entitled “Grant’s Rant”. That man, Grant Napear, has served as the announcer for the Sacramento Kings for 30 years, and uses this sentence to punctuate big plays. For 10 Points, identify this tautological statement asserting the basketball audience’s affection for the entertainment product they are consuming.
ANSWER: “If you don’t like that, you don’t like NBA basketball!”
I don’t think that this tossup is bad, just that it’s one-note and rather niche, and I didn’t have much content for it except for listing highlights and then telling the audience that this is the Kings announcer, over and over.
4.At the end of his career, this player spent several months with the USBL’s Miami Tropics before signing with the Rockets in 1987 for a last season. He’d started his career his career with the Philadelphia 76ers in 1975, played as a 6th man in the 1977 Finals, and in 1978 was traded for a 1984 first-rounder to be paired with Randy Smith. Nicknamed “The Prince of Mid-Air”, during one interview, he said he would name his children “First, Second, and Third”, but apparently never followed through. He made only one All-Star team in 1979-80, in a season where he scored 30 PPG for the San Diego Clippers, and for two years finished second league-wide in scoring, in 1979 and 1980. For 10 Points, name this eccentric, balding guard, who legally changed his first name from Lloyd in 1981 to a basketball nickname which reflected his style’s global appeal.
ANSWER: World B. Free
This is where I drew the line in terms of “second-tier stars from the ‘70s and ‘80s”. To be fair, I didn’t know much about World B. Free except his name and the anecdote about his children. Didn’t help that he played for bad teams and ones that don’t exist anymore.
X. Only one player on either team scored in double figures in this game, partially due to the slow-paced defensive style of Coach Henry Iba (EYE-BAH). Tom Henderson and Jim Brewer scored 9 each; future Indiana Pacer Kevin Joyce would lead a second-half comeback for one team. In the previous round, one team had defeated Cuba and the other had blown out Italy, which would wind up taking 4th. This game’s memory was marred by a sequence including a dispute over whether a timeout had been called, and a prematurely started clock, leading to one team having three attempts to make a last-second play, made layup by Aleksandr Belov. His brother Sergey Belov had 20 to lead all scorers in this game, whose final score was 51-50. For 10 Points, identify this game which snapped the USA’s 63-game Olympic winning streak, after which the American team refused their silver medals.
ANSWER: The 1972 Olympic Gold Medal Game (or 1972 Olympic Basketball Final, or the USSR-US/USA/America game at the 1972 Olympics – prompt on “Russia” )
I know for a fact that I wrote 125 tossups, but somewhere in the transcription from the master file to the other files things went awry. That 105th tossup is still waiting in the master file, but a couple sweeps didn’t result in me recognizing it. I’m sure it’s good.