Empty the Bench

By Matt Mossman

ISTANBUL – Turkey is a soccer country; even grandmothers have a favorite team. But Turks seem keen to pack a stadium for whatever comes along. If Game 4 of the Turkish Basketball League finals Thursday night in Istanbul was any indication, basketball is fertile ground for the same soccer hooligans who scare women and children across Europe.

The finals this year is a Turkish version of the Lakers and Celtics: Efes Pilsen vs. Fenerbahce Ulker, each storied teams now with a few Americans on the roster. Fenerbahce, up 2-1 in the series going into the game, is led by NBA journeyman guard Will Solomon, of Clemson, and NBA flunkie Mirsad Turkcan, selected 18th in the 1998 draft by the Houston Rockets.

Efes counters with University of New Mexico guard Charles Smith, who played for five NBA teams before heading overseas, and ex-Syracuse forward Preston Shumpert.

Outside the arena, vendors hawked meatball sandwiches, bagel-like bread rings called simits, and scarves and wristbands in canary yellow and navy blue, the colors of Fenerbahce, the home team. Also on offer as fans filed into the stadium: horns, whistles, bottled water and packaged sunflower seeds. Did this mean one could bring one’s own food inside? I and an expatriate friend, Danny, assumed so.

We were wrong. The lineup at the gates was long and getting longer, in part because of the time required to confiscate the horns, waters, and sunflower seeds everyone had just purchased. The confusion continued inside. Two different ushers couldn’t help us find our seats, never mind the right section. We awarded ourselves some decent seats in the area, about 10 rows up behind one of the baskets and amid Fenerbahce fans.

The home team took the floor first, jogging into a warm-up drill that seemed part shoot-around and part synchronized swimming. The players ran in line from baseline to center court and back twice, and then added in footwork drills as they went, then jumping jacks and leg stretches. Efes ran a normal lay-up line, which wasn’t at all funny.

By tip-off it was clear that many among us managed to sneak in their whistles, horns or kazoos. The first quarter was louder than Motorhead cranked to 11. The Fenerbahce fans worked through a lineup of orchestrated cheers: rhythmic clapping, fight songs, pointing at the Efes fans’ section and booing, or pointing at each other and cheering. Most wore yellow-and-blue striped Fenerbahce soccer jerseys. They made extra noise when Efes players shot free throws, but they didn’t seem to understand why they were doing it because they gave their own free-throw shooters the same treatment. Funny, but a forgivable sin, I think. University of Florida football fans sitting in my section at the 1999 Orange Bowl made extra noise when Donovan McNabb’s Syracuse offense faced a third down, but also when their own team did. If Gators fans miss the point of strategic noisemaking, can we expect better from others?

More from Game 4 of the Turkish League Finals after the break….

Efes started the second quarter up 19-10 after a few jumpers by St. John’s alum Bootsy Thornton, and the crowd sensed a problem. A foul called on the home team brought boos and a mini shower of debris from the stands – cups, water bottles, noisemakers, and the other stuff presumably to be confiscated at the gate. This seemed ordinary– refs and players helped clean up, and the game continued.

Shumpert checked in for Efes with 8 minutes left in the second, and took his team’s next seven shots, including two airballs. This flurry yielded just four points, and Efes’ lead was down to 40-35 at the half. It was a decent half of entertaining basketball, with good defense but less cutting, screening, and passing than expected, and more driving. Some observations: the refs didn’t seem to care how many times a player changed a pivot foot, the bigs were well drilled in posting and boxing out, and there’s no continuation. Guys in midair on drives were getting foul calls, but no free throws.

Efes nursed its lead deep into the third quarter, and another wave of cups and programs descended from the stands after Solomon got blocked at the rim but didn’t get a foul call. Shumpert atoned for his airballs with a game-high 20 points, including two late threes after Fenerbahce had cut the Efes lead to two points. A steal and streaking lay-up by Charles Smith salted the game away with a minute to play.

Finally the one section of Efes fans made some noise of their own – what frontrunners! – and that’s when things blew up. All potential projectiles flew at the away team’s fans, some of them open water bottles that sprayed in flight. Cops jumped into the stands, and one caught a fan in the process of hurling a cup. The guy protested innocence anyways, which would have been more entertaining if I wasn’t within a swinging fist of the exchange. The game finished as a sideshow – 77-68 for Efes – and we headed out.

Barricades in the concourse ensured that Fenerbahce fans were rerouted away from the exit reserved for Efes fans. It was as we were lumped in with this big and sullen group, shuffling down an unlit concrete stairway, that Danny told me that when he’d bought the tickets, he was asked at the ticket booth which team he’d intended to cheer for.

Danny paid 20 Turkish lira for two tickets. Add in two lira for the confiscated sunflower seeds, and 15 lira on taxis, and we’d parted with US$22.80 between the two of us. Fenerbahce’s pre-game line-dancing shootaround was worth at least that much in laughs, we agreed. We’d seen a competitive game, some unruly-crowd action, and a live reminder of the gangly weirdness of Preston Shumpert running the floor.

Game 5 is Sunday; if we go, we’re taking earplugs.

Matt Mossman is a freelance writer based in Istanbul, and an enthusiastic witness to Turkish oil wrestling, Iran’s Persian warrior-dance workout routines, cockfights in Manila, and other strange Asian sports.

Photo Copyright: Matt Mossman