Plenty to read about basketball, high school and professional

The end of high school football season means the beginning of basketball season in Southeast Missouri.

Basketball has deep roots in Southeast Missouri; it’s the sport all the local high schools play, and there is a rich and successful history here. Whether you’re talking about Scott County Central’s past dynasty or Charleston’s or recent upstart dynamos in boys or girls basketball, there is always something to talk about for the boosters and fans in the area.

We’re calling a technical foul if you’re a fan and haven’t browsed our basketball preview section. Our sportswriters worked hard bringing you profiles of 20 boys and girls basketball teams in our coverage area. If you missed it, check out semoball.com. That’s where you’ll find the season previews as well as all the hardwood news all winter long and other sports, too.

Speaking of basketball, we’d like to congratulate Adam Criblez, assistant professor of history and director of the Center for Regional History at Southeast Missouri State University, for the publication of his new book “Tall Tales and Short Shorts: Dr. J, Pistol Pete and the Birth of the Modern NBA.”

Criblez combined passion for history and sports into a new book. Once a college basketball player, the author and professor took on the topic of the NBA’s interesting history, filling in a niche that had been filled in other sports.

“Everything I’d read to that point dismissed the ‘70s as this kind of dark period where the NBA survived and that was really the best you could say about it. So I really wanted to dig into it,” Criblez said. “... I started doing some work and saw, ‘There’s actually some interesting stuff going on here.’”

If you’re a fan of basketball, you can find good reads here in Southeast Missouri, whether from an author/professor at the university or the hardworking staff at the Southeast Missourian and semoball.com.

Here’s to all the local athletes and coaches who put in hours of work all for the love of sport.