Boom Tho on rivalry

Checking Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo! Sports today, I was surprised to see a couple of Sioux Falls Skyforce players rocking the rebound.

Well, duh. I totally forgot that regular blogger Rod Benson plays for the Dakota Wizards, who were in town last Saturday. (We missed it, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they revoked our season tickets for missing a heated rivalry game. Seriously. I feel like a chump for missing the game.)

Anyway, he does a good job of summing up the Dakota Wizards/Sioux Falls Skyforce rivalry without hyperbole, helping lend some credibility to my claim that, yes, D-League Basketball is indeed entertaining, important and high quality.

From the post:

On Saturday we played in Sioux Falls. These guys are our rivals, a rivalry that borders on the Bulls-Pistons level back in the day. I mean, I guess I should say it’s as close to that kind of hard-fought, knockdown, drag-out rivalry as a minor league basketball rivalry can be. The guys on each team are usually some of the best in the D-League. They have been with the same team for years. Of course, the whole “North Dakota vs. South Dakota” thing plays a part. The attendance is the best in the league for these games. There’s just a lot of emotion involved every time we play.

The bad thing is that Dakota won thanks to some stupid heat-of-the-moment technicals and fouls. If it wasn’t for getting into our own heads, the Skyforce would be undefeated.

Regardless, nice to see some semi-national attention for the ‘Force.