Matt Steinmetz

There’s nothing like a great basketball venue. Does anything beat a great game, with a sellout crowd, at a special gym or arena? No, sir. Here are my personal favorites … my Basketball Mount Venue-More, if you will:

Hersheypark Arena (Hershey, PA): OK, so I have this phrase that is a verbal crutch, if you will. When starting to explain a point, I’ll start: “You don’t get it …” And then I continue my point. It’s a bad habit except when I talk about Hersheypark Arena.

So many people “just don’t get it.” Hersheypark Arena had history (see Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game), mystique and character. Hersheypark Arena would host high school double-headers in the 1970s that would draw more than 8,000. It was the mecca of Pennsylvania high school basketball. There was nothing like Reading High closing out a big game there with thousands of fans chanting/singing: “Right on RHS!”

Still will never forget seeing legendary Kentucky coach Joe B. Hall, sitting courtside at Hershey, watching Sam Bowie, who was at Lebanon.

Martz Hall (Pottsville, PA): Martz Hall is, by far, the nicest high school gym I’ve ever stepped foot in. You could fit more than 4,000 in there when it was “Standing Room Only,” which was most of the time when I saw games there.

It was a gym where … when you entered, you found yourself atop the bleachers and seats. You walked in, then you walked down. When I went to games there, it was almost brand new (built in 1970); now it is iconic. The two best things to come out of Pottsville, PA: Yuengling beer and Martz Hall.

It was the site of the greatest shot in Reading High history — Cliff Durham’s half-court buzzer-beater in the Eastern (PA) quarterfinal to beat Upper Merion 34-33 in 1973. It was also the site where Sam Bowie scored 48 points and had 12 slam dunks against Williamsport in an inter-district game. At least, that’s what I remember, and if I’m wrong on a detail or two, I’ll gladly take a correction.

Oracle Arena (Oakland, CA): I’ve never witnessed a more intense, more passionate, more magical arena in the NBA than Oracle Arena — during the Warriors’ 2006-07 “We Believe” year. The Warriors had been terrible, as usual, the first half of the season. But they caught lightning in a bottle, won 16 of their last 21 regular-season games, including nine of their last 10, then knocked off the 67-win Dallas Mavericks in the first-round of the NBA playoffs.

The Warriors had missed the playoffs in their previous 12 seasons. But as they started to get warm late in the year, the passion of a loyal fan-base grew with each win, and it evolved into something almost indescribable. The atmosphere at Oracle Arena — during the spring of 1997 — was one of the singular greatest basketball environments I’ve ever been amid.

Geigle Complex (Reading, PA): If Martz Hall is the best high school gym I’ve ever been in, Geigle Complex is No. 2. But Geigle holds a special place in my heart because I played there. You know who else did? Kobe Bryant, Rasheed Wallace, Lonnie Walker IV, Bobby Sura, Donyell Marshall, Michael Brooks, Billy Owens, my guy Steve Rossignoli, and a host of other great players.

The legendary Princeton coach Pete Carril used to hold basketball camps there. It was opened in the early 1970s, and there wasn’t anything like it — with the possible exception of Martz Hall. Geigle Complex: Where basketball was beautiful.

Martz Hall

Geigle Complex

Rockne Hall

Kezar Pavilion

Mayser Center

The Palestra: streamers

(Updated from 2021)

Tony Bonanno, was, essentially, an idol to me. If you grew up in the 1970s in Berks County and you loved basketball, you followed Reading High School. Period. End of story. And if you followed Reading High back then, you knew who Tony Bonanno was.

He was sometimes the smallest player on the court, but he was always the smartest. He was never much of a scorer, but there was never a player on the court who was more important. Bonanno had a great handle and played with flair, but he was also one of the most solid and sound point guards I’ve ever seen.

I was 11-years old when Tony graduated from Reading High, but by the time he played his final game there, he had shown me how it was done. He showed me what I had to do, how I had to play … to even sniff the level he was at.

Tony didn’t control games, he orchestrated them. He didn’t need to score, though, if need be, he could. He was a perfect mix of flashy and fundamental, though he never would have played at Reading High if he were more the former than the latter. Dude had pizazz and charisma!

To me, Tony was the original “pass first” point guard, and because I loved his game, that’s what I tried to become, too. Of course, there’s a joke in there about how I failed to properly emulate Tony in the passing department, but believe me, I tried.

I loved everything about Tony Bonanno, and without him, I wouldn’t love the game of basketball as much as I do now. Hell, I’m still living and loving basketball and Tony started me down that path. RIP Tony Bonanno. You had no idea of how often I thought about you. And still do.

Let’s get one thing out of the way … we’re not talking about Glenn “Big Dog” Robinson, who went to Purdue and played most of his pro career with the Milwaukee Bucks. Nope, we’re talking about Glenn Robinson, the all-time winningest coach in Division III men’s basketball history.

I was lucky enough to play for two coaches — Glenn Robinson at Franklin and Marshall and the late Lloyd Wolf at Holy Name — who combined to win almost 1,600 games. They were very different gentlemen, to say the least, but both could coach.

Coach Robinson didn’t drink, smoke or swear. Mr. Wolf did all three of those things.

Robinson won 967 games at F&M, and was there for more than 50 years. He was established when I got there in the early 1980’s and he was a legend by the time he was done in 2019. I could never say it then, but I can and do now: Glenn Robinson was a great coach.

Robinson was such a contradiction: He was flexible and rigid; he gave you freedom but he also gave you rules; he’d go over the top with tough love but could forgive and move on. To say Robinson loved Dean Smith, the former coach of North Carolina, would be an understatement.

Robinson went to Smith’s coaching camps in the summer, and employed the same “open offense” Smith employed for the Tar Heels. There’s never been a better offense created than “open” or “motion” or “flex” or the “Princeton” offense. I lump those all together because they’re based on the same thing: passing, spacing, movement, screening, cutting and ball movement.

Those offenses allow for creativity, they allow for going one-one-one, they allow for hand-offs and backdoors. You have all the freedom in the world … almost. Hell, we only had about three or four “plays” that I can remember. There are some rules, but they are usually few: Big men gotta get out of the post if they’re not getting the ball; most of the time a passer has to “screen away” or cut hard down middle; all five players should be able to handle the ball. Quite frankly, it’s the perfect blend of individual and team.

Robinson could be rigid, though, and two of his rules got to me. The first was “it’s always the passer’s fault.” That meant every turnover, every bobble and every bungle was the passer’s fault, and I was too often the passer.

The second one was: “One-man must get back on defense first.” The one-man was the point guard, which was always me. If any team ever got a fast-break, one-on-zero fastbreak, it was always, always, always my fault. I could have driven, gotten knocked on my ass under the basket without a call, sprained an ankle in the process, and Robinson still expected me to get back on defense first — and not Matt Bastian, the two-man!

If an opponent got a breakaway basket, it was the one-man’s fault. If the other team scored off a two-on-one, it was the shooting guard’s fault; a three-on-two was a small forward problem, and so on. There were no exceptions. There never were. Ever.

Guess what I think are two of the biggest things when it comes to successful basketball: Valuing the ball and getting back on defense.