COLUMN: San Juan was not a hoops paradise

Scott Miller, Commentary Certainly the Condado Plaza Hotel and Casino owners were pleased with the number of people staying in their facility in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The place, especially the casino, was chock-full of pituitary cases every night over Thanksgiving weekend. It was questionable, however, what entices basketball teams to pay over $1,500 a head to play three guaranteed games in sub-par facilities without much time to enjoy the warm weather and tourist traps. And when it came to playing basketball, the 24 teams in town had to travel at least a half hour to a sporting complex to play in wretched gyms. The name of the tournament was the San Juan Shootout, and seven other teams joined the Penn men's basketball team for the event. There was a women's version too, and another eight men's teams from across the U.S. were also in town for the Puerto Rico Shootout. For the island, this was the biggest spectacle of American collegiate basketball. But it was immediately unclear whether these tournaments were trying to bring mainland basketball to a small island 1,000 miles southeast of Florida, or whether tournament organizers were trying to give the Americans a taste of Puerto Rico. Maybe it was just to get the hotels some extra business. Minutes after arriving at the hotel, Penn took a trip to the Caguas Municipal Complex, a basketball arena for the local Corillos Caguas, 20 miles south of the capital. After leaving the highway, the bus went through one of the plethora of depressed areas of the island and into a small parking lot, where the team disembarked for its shoot-around. Stepping inside the arena, it was obvious the facilities and everything else were nothing short of abysmal. The 7,000-seat arena had more colors than the birds in the El Yunque rainforest. The court itself had wide-open seams and bare bolts on each plank. The floor would give a little when anyone stepped on it. The baskets needed duct tape to be held together, and there were more stripes on the floor than a high school gymnasium. The people running the show couldn't put out a statistics sheet or a box score; school's sports information directors would turn in updated stats after watching the game tapes in the evening. Shot-clock operators couldn't get their act together, yet the entire staff still acted as if everything was normal. The eight teams in the San Juan Shootout didn't have it as bad as the women. They had to play on a painted concrete. Even though every team had to deal with the same conditions equally -- it was incredible that teams like Illinois returned to Puerto Rico to play in these conditions. So while the hotel took the money from teams, cheerleaders, fans, parents, groupies and media, there was an amazing lack of professionalism when it came to basketball: the part of the trip every coach and every player will say was the most important. The San Juan Shootout gave the Quakers the ability to play three games without affecting the Ivy League-imposed 26-game cap on basketball schedules. As a result, Penn coach Fran Dunphy is able to give his players 29 contests. Penn hoopsters got a meal at the Hard Rock Cafe and took a tour of old San Juan -- a haven for tourists -- on Friday night. But after that sojourn, the ritual was mid-evening film sessions and early bed checks in preparation for the next day's game. In other words, the Quakers and the other 23 teams did not have time to realize the tropical paradise implications in "San Juan Shootout."