IBL boss plans to add teams

Steve Guiremand

Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2000 | 9:41 a.m.

The Las Vegas Silver Bandits are the hottest team in the International Basketball League, having won 18 of their last 20 games.

They play in a first-class facility, the Thomas & Mack Center. They possess the IBL's top scorer in former UCLA star J.R. Henderson and also the league's top rebounder in Oral Roberts grad Rocky Walls.

They have a fancy pregame introduction and a knockout group of energetic young cheerleaders. But what the first-year professional basketball club doesn't have at the midway point of its inaugural season is very many paying fans.

Monday night, despite a Valentine's Day promotion which enabled female boosters to attend for free, a crowd of only about 300 fans showed up to view the Silver Bandits drop a physical but entertaining 113-109 decision to a Trenton Stars squad that featured former UNLV recruit Lloyd Daniels.

Okay, maybe a cheap date at a basketball game doesn't rank up there with roses and chocolates as the most romantic thing to do on Valentine's Day. But you can probably find at least 300 people at your average high school basketball game on any given night.

Which prompts this question: How much longer can a team with a payroll of $500,000 and a whole lot more invested in travel, personnel and arena costs, continue to operate?

Evidently, at least another season according to IBL chief executive officer Art Cipriani.

Cipriani, who made his many millions in natural gas back in the late '80s and early '90s, announced plans on Monday to actually expand the IBL next year.

"Everybody here is focused on increasing attendance and increasing sponsorship, but I'm thinking three to five years down the road," Cipriani said. "Year 2 is a given. We're going to add two to four teams, then take it from there."

For his part, Silver Bandits general manager and head coach Rolland Todd seems more concerned with trying to catch first-place St. Louis in the IBL's competitive four-team Western Division than whether Cipriani and company might decide to pull the plug on Las Vegas if attendance doesn't start picking up.

"I don't worry about it because worrying doesn't do any good," Todd said. "If we can continue to keep putting a good product on the floor, hopefully the fans will begin to come out.

"I really think our second season here will be more important than the first one. Then you have something to build on. Your first year, people really don't what it is we have going here. It's always tough to lay new track. But we're working hard in all of our (eight) cities to get things going."

If IBL attendance figures mean anything -- Monday night's announced crowd of 1,270 was very well padded -- the new league is already averaging 300 fans per game more than the long-standing Continental Basketball Association.

New Mexico leads the IBL with an average of 5,200 fans per game while St. Louis is listed as averaging 4,500. The break-even point for a franchise is about 4,000. Las Vegas is allegedly averaging about 2,000 fans per game.

"(The IBL) is pretty much committed to two years to start," Todd said. "I guess it could happen where we don't have a second season here, but I don't anticipate that happening."

* GAME NOTES: Daniels scored 22 points, including five 3-pointers, and UC Santa Barbara product Ray Tutt added 24 points and 10 rebounds to lead Trenton (17-16) to a 113-109 win over the Silver Bandits (21-12) on Monday night. Former LA Clipper Harold Ellis scored a game-high 25 points and Henderson, named IBL player of the week for the third time this season, added 19 points to lead Las Vegas. ... Ellis was also involved in a very strange play. After losing his shoe on offense, he raced back to guard Daniels, stuck up his arm while holding his shoe, and partially deflected a 3-point attempt by Daniels with the tip of the sneaker. ... The Silver Bandits host Trenton again on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. at the Thomas & Mack.