(04-21-2017 11:17 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  Since NoDak claimed American migration and culture patterns explain Basketball. Perhaps we should look at some real data and analysis

First Colin Woodard's mapping of Americans by culture and migration might bear fruit
http://emerald.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine...-arms.html



Or perhaps the culture map below (it explains rivalries like Pitt-WV and KU-Mizzou) based on communication and migration patterns by Samuel Arbesman
http://www.citylab.com/politics/2012/04/...ture/1839/

Have lived in four of the zones from the Tufts map, and can definitely say that Ohio River (Appalachia) locales were the most fervent basketball fans. In the Midlands bball was more about a community get together than the sport itself. The Deep South didn't care about it except if it was their kids. The Far West liked their teams, but were ardently against eastern ones for college bball.

Kentucky and W Virginia are the only states fully in the Appalachia (Scotch-Irish) zone.

I think you are going way too much on personal anecdotal evidence NoDak. My son played in the Catholic leagues here in California (Catholic schools, but the players are mostly not Catholic, rather the best athletes in Bay Area), so he was always on travel AAU teams. We went all over the country, and that includes back to places like Fort Wayne (Spiece Gym Rats Tourney), Orlando (AAU Nationals), and many other places. The best players and teams are from the larger cities, and pretty much everywhere. The more people, the more stiff the competition. I'm sure some of the strong players came from smaller towns, but if your kid is really good, you move closer to the city where they can play in tougher leagues, (we had one on our AAU team who moved in from the Salinas area, closer to Silicon Valley because his son was big and a baller), but he had to play better players; note, also our coach came from Tracy, and commuted to San Jose so his son could play in the area for the same reason). The days of Hoosiers are long gone where farm boys made any impact. It's an urban game, with urban players, even when they play for rural schools.

The only comment I will make on culture is this. Californians and Great Lake Midwesterners are the only two groups of peoples who insist they do not speak with any accent. Being that I grew up in one, and now live in the other, it always makes me chuckle when I hear one of them insist, "I don't speak with an accent."

(04-21-2017 07:27 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  

(04-21-2017 07:25 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  No doubt that the state of Kentucky has great basketball programs, but is its depth really greater than neighboring Indiana (with Indiana, Purdue, Notre Dame and Butler at the top level and smaller schools like Indiana State that have key historic moments) or North Carolina (Duke, UNC, NC State and Wake Forest plus schools like Davidson and Charlotte)?

Indiana and North Carolina produce prospects.

Kentucky produces bourbon.

Lots of Kentucky talent. Calipari just doesn't recruit it. That helps WKU and Murray (and to some extent Louisville).

(04-21-2017 07:34 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  I guess to Kittonhead's point, the closest corollary would actually be the state of Kansas with KU, Kansas State and Wichita State all being excellent programs (and an elite blue blood in the case of KU) despite having few top in-state prospects.

Adolph Rupp played at Kansas University under Phog Allen with some coaching by James Naismith. He spread the basketball religion to Kentucky when he became coach there.

I seem to recall the state of North Carolina having some Kansas connection early in its history as well, but don't remember exactly what.

Don't know what it is about Indiana, but I remember moving to Ohio after living in Indiana and someone ask me, "Are the kids in Indiana tall?" I had to answer yes (but I've never seen any actual statistics on average heights). He also asked if kids in Kentucky were dumb. The answer to that was no.

#1 reason why is that Kentucky has no pro sports of any kinda..... its all about college and high school

(04-22-2017 02:18 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  I think you are going way too much on personal anecdotal evidence NoDak. My son played in the Catholic leagues here in California (Catholic schools, but the players are mostly not Catholic, rather the best athletes in Bay Area), so he was always on travel AAU teams. We went all over the country, and that includes back to places like Fort Wayne (Spiece Gym Rats Tourney), Orlando (AAU Nationals), and many other places. The best players and teams are from the larger cities, and pretty much everywhere. The more people, the more stiff the competition. I'm sure some of the strong players came from smaller towns, but if your kid is really good, you move closer to the city where they can play in tougher leagues, (we had one on our AAU team who moved in from the Salinas area, closer to Silicon Valley because his son was big and a baller), but he had to play better players; note, also our coach came from Tracy, and commuted to San Jose so his son could play in the area for the same reason). The days of Hoosiers are long gone where farm boys made any impact. It's an urban game, with urban players, even when they play for rural schools.

The only comment I will make on culture is this. Californians and Great Lake Midwesterners are the only two groups of peoples who insist they do not speak with any accent. Being that I grew up in one, and now live in the other, it always makes me chuckle when I hear one of them insist, "I don't speak with an accent."

Growing up in the Upper Plains, ethnicity had a major impact, even today, about how the local schools athletics performed. It's micro level of course, but Norwegian areas generally had height, so they were good in basketball and German areas had kids that were built but shorter, so they predominated at wrestling and football. There were numerous other areas that were another predominant background, such as English, Dutch, Czech, American Indian, Polish, Ukrainian, Icelandic, Lebanese, Swiss, etc. In my own mothers town, which still had Norwegian spoken in the streets when I was a teenager, it was a basket cradle of coaches, like Lute Olson, Ben Jacobson of UNI, and others including my uncle. ND doesn't produce much DI talent, but that area does, with height. Winning begets more winning and financial support for facilities.

Those same issues work on a much more macro level. Of course African Americans has had a tremendous effect on talent, but the fan base absolutely matters.

(04-21-2017 07:25 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  No doubt that the state of Kentucky has great basketball programs, but is its depth really greater than neighboring Indiana (with Indiana, Purdue, Notre Dame and Butler at the top level and smaller schools like Indiana State that have key historic moments) or North Carolina (Duke, UNC, NC State and Wake Forest plus schools like Davidson and Charlotte)?

North Carolina has the same population as Indiana and Kentucky combined (if you take out Gary, which doesn't count as Indiana). There's some good basketball schools in NC, but nearly as many as in Indiana/Kentucky/SW Ohio

The places where basketball REALLY matters are:
Kansas
Indiana/Kentucky/SW Ohio
North Carolina
Philadelphia
The (predominantly black) inner cities of the North
On the campuses of UCLA, SDSU, Gonzaga, and New Mexico (and only on-campus, because few other people in the West really care for basketball)

(04-21-2017 11:53 PM)NoDak Wrote:  

(04-21-2017 11:17 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  Since NoDak claimed American migration and culture patterns explain Basketball. Perhaps we should look at some real data and analysis

First Colin Woodard's mapping of Americans by culture and migration might bear fruit
http://emerald.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine...-arms.html



Or perhaps the culture map below (it explains rivalries like Pitt-WV and KU-Mizzou) based on communication and migration patterns by Samuel Arbesman
http://www.citylab.com/politics/2012/04/...ture/1839/

Have lived in four of the zones from the Tufts map, and can definitely say that Ohio River (Appalachia) locales were the most fervent basketball fans. In the Midlands bball was more about a community get together than the sport itself. The Deep South didn't care about it except if it was their kids. The Far West liked their teams, but were ardently against eastern ones for college bball.

Kentucky and W Virginia are the only states fully in the Appalachia (Scotch-Irish) zone.

Agree, I live in KY and I am Scotch-Irish.

(04-22-2017 05:44 PM)wkuhilltopperfan Wrote:  #1 reason why is that Kentucky has no pro sports of any kinda..... its all about college and high school

That and the fact that Memphis made a better offer to the Grizzlies than Louisville did. And the fact that the NBA didn't pick the Colonels to be one of the four ABA teams taken. They and the Pacers were the only teams to make it all 9 years in the ABA without relocating or changing names.

did anybody read book 'loose balls'
it's about the history of ABA
it's a roit, don't stop laughing thru the whole book

(04-21-2017 07:23 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  

(04-21-2017 07:20 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  Eastern Kentucky also has 8 bids
Morehead State has 7 bids, including a Sweet 16

Kentucky Wesleyan has reached the DII tourney 38 times, Elite 8 21 times, championship game 13 times, 8 National Champs

Don't forget Bellermine, they are relatively new though.

(04-21-2017 07:29 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(04-21-2017 07:27 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  

(04-21-2017 07:25 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  No doubt that the state of Kentucky has great basketball programs, but is its depth really greater than neighboring Indiana (with Indiana, Purdue, Notre Dame and Butler at the top level and smaller schools like Indiana State that have key historic moments) or North Carolina (Duke, UNC, NC State and Wake Forest plus schools like Davidson and Charlotte)?

Indiana and North Carolina produce prospects.

Kentucky produces bourbon.

That's a fair point.

Kentucky &, to a lesser extent, Louisville were great in basketball & so everyone played it. The state turned out recruits then but when Louisville began their rise in football in the '80's football gained popularity at the high school level & the states top athletes started playing. The city of Louisville also consists of about 1/3 of the states population.

The state of North Carolina is the true holy grail of men's basketball

(04-23-2017 11:27 AM)NBPirate Wrote:  The state of North Carolina is the true holy grail of men's basketball

LOL......no

(04-21-2017 07:30 PM)NoDak Wrote:  One theory is that where the Scotch-Irish predominates, basketball took center stage. Like NC, KY, parts of TN, southern IN, parts of Mo etc mostly south of the Ohio River. Been through those areas several times and those people are predominately wirey framed, not bulky. Davy Crockett was Scotch-Irish and his people helped settle Ky.

German, English and eastern ethnics didnt get into basketball til much later. Ohio was heavily settled by these people groups and seems to be more orientated to football. Of course Cincinnati seems to be an exception, but it is along the Ohio River and has many more Scoth-Irish descendants.

Where ever Abraham Lincoln and his forbears settled, it was bball country, not fb.

Scotch is a drink. Scots are a people.

(04-23-2017 08:01 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  

(04-21-2017 07:30 PM)NoDak Wrote:  One theory is that where the Scotch-Irish predominates, basketball took center stage. Like NC, KY, parts of TN, southern IN, parts of Mo etc mostly south of the Ohio River. Been through those areas several times and those people are predominately wirey framed, not bulky. Davy Crockett was Scotch-Irish and his people helped settle Ky.

German, English and eastern ethnics didnt get into basketball til much later. Ohio was heavily settled by these people groups and seems to be more orientated to football. Of course Cincinnati seems to be an exception, but it is along the Ohio River and has many more Scoth-Irish descendants.

Where ever Abraham Lincoln and his forbears settled, it was bball country, not fb.

Scotch is a drink. Scots are a people.

Scotch-Irish are a people group, not drinking Irish.

What state has three national champions? And five schools to play in a final four? I think NC may be the better state then Kentucky. Also I am unbias as I hate all those NC schools and my school sucks at basketball.

National Champions
North Carolina
Duke
NC State

Plus Charlotte and Wake Foret have final four teams.

On top of that Elite 8 Davidson

(04-21-2017 06:48 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  The University of Kentucky itself is arguably the top basketball program in the country. They have basketball fans that rival the biggest T-Shirt fans of college football.

Louisville is arguably in its own right a blue blood basketball program, probably in the Top 10 of all programs. Right in the same exact state as UK. The only comparable college football has is Florida/Florida State but that is pretty explainable with all of talent in the state of Florida.

Western Kentucky has through its history accomplished more than almost any true mid major program between NCAA berths and a Final Four. They'll not infrequently land a Top 100 recruit and have the talent to be an at-large entrant to the NCAA tourney.

Murray State is one of the very most dominant low majors with 15 NCAA tournament appearances in its history.

Northern Kentucky moves up to the Horizon League and boom the next thing they've made the NCAA tourney.

What is magical about basketball in the state of Kentucky that makes this possible?

Shhhh... Don't tell North Carolina, Duke, and NC State. Only 20 miles between them.

(04-22-2017 12:31 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(04-21-2017 07:34 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  I guess to Kittonhead's point, the closest corollary would actually be the state of Kansas with KU, Kansas State and Wichita State all being excellent programs (and an elite blue blood in the case of KU) despite having few top in-state prospects.

Adolph Rupp played at Kansas University under Phog Allen with some coaching by James Naismith. He spread the basketball religion to Kentucky when he became coach there.

I seem to recall the state of North Carolina having some Kansas connection early in its history as well, but don't remember exactly what.

Don't know what it is about Indiana, but I remember moving to Ohio after living in Indiana and someone ask me, "Are the kids in Indiana tall?" I had to answer yes (but I've never seen any actual statistics on average heights). He also asked if kids in Kentucky were dumb. The answer to that was no.

Dean Smith played at Kansas.

North Carolina and Kentucky are definitely premiere basketball states and depending upon what criteria you look at, one could make a strong argument for one or the other as being the top. Personally, I don't see much difference between the top two.

Here's an interesting stat:

In all-time winning percentage in Division 1 Basketball, Kentucky has 4 teams in the Top 16. North Carolina and New York have 2 and no other state has more than 1.

Kentucky:
UK - #1
UL - #7
WKU - #8
Murray State- #16

North Carolina:
UNC - #2
Duke - #4

NCState does come in at #25.

New York:
Syracuse #6
St. Johns #11

Indiana has 3 in the Top 25 too:
ND at #10
Indiana #18
Purdue #22.
No other North Carolina or Indiana school is in the Top 50.