Basketball has always been my favorite sport since coming to BYU. However, it is getting harder and harder to have a good game these days. Last month, I remember that we went to the Smith Field House to play some basketball, but none of the courts were available, as people were holding intramural games. We had the same problem the next week and the week after that. It is quite frustrating to wait for hours to play a game before the building closed. The lack of basketball courts is a noticeable problem that should be considered.
BYU has about 30,000 students not including professors. Assume that half of them, 15,000 students, want to play basketball only one day a week. Roughly 2,000 students would play on Monday; other 2,000 on Tuesday and so on. I usually play basketball on Thursday’s night. Let’s say on Thursday, among those 2000 students, one fourth of them really want to play basketball. The rest might change their minds and go on a date, watch a movie, climb the Y, etc. In conclusion, 500 students have a plan to play basketball on Thursday, but we only have ten basketball courts (three in SFH and seven in RB) which can contain about 300 students.
We would love to see more basketball courts to be built and more people play this fantastic and traditional game. If you still remember BYU’s historic comeback against Iona, you know that we need more Jimmer Fredettes, Noah Hartsocks, Brandon Davies, etc. Building more basketball courts will help us train more and become one of them someday.
DAT NGUYEN
Hanoi, Vietnam
