Paris beat Boulazac ninety to seventy-five. Boulazac led at the break, Paris took the last quarter twenty-eight to sixteen, Tyson Etienne finished with twenty-six points. All of that is basketball, and basketball can be announced.
But then there was half-time. According to Antoine Eïto, president David Kahn came to apologise for his controversial remarks, and the incident is closed. An apology. At the break. I don’t know how it went over there. But I know how I would have done it.
Me, Saturday, half past eight, I’d have done it like this. Darkness, or half of it, because of the caretaker. Two spotlights from the school fête. “Mesdames et messieurs, dames en heren, this is the moment.” Two seconds of nothing. “The incident is…” [jingle] “…closed!” And the PA kicks in too early, because it has opinions.
Alexandre Ménard, for his part, said: “We didn’t have it in for Paris especially. Those remarks were mostly clumsiness, and now it’s time to make room for basketball.” Making room for basketball is exactly what I tell the president’s nephew when he stays in his dinosaur costume in the middle of the court after the time-out.
The apology didn’t stop the clock. Noted.
And Eïto ended the night at the press conference, smiling, with thirteen points and seven assists. He got his exit, with a microphone in front of him. The apology, we only know from what he told us. A moment like that, at our place, would have had the dark and a jingle. Just saying.
It’s true, we checked: BeBasket.
