Last night on Love Island USA, a game show my wife watches while I'm in the room, the remaining male contestants played basketball. I do not know if this was part of the contest or just a pick-up game where the players happened to be wearing mic packs. However I do know, via osmosis, that one of the dudes on the show is a professional basketball player.
According to an article on NBC.com titled "Who Is Chris Seeley from Love Island USA? All About His Basketball Career & More," the 6-foot-8 forward played in college for Utah, Fresno State and Division II Cal State–Dominguez Hills (the Toros). Stats on kenpom.com show Seeley played 20 Division I games and made 14 of his 30 free throws. Per Eurobasket, he has played in Australia, France, Kosovo, North Macedonia and, this year, Indonesia.
So Seeley has played a lot of basketball. But had he ever played on a court as fucked up as the one on Love Island? The Fiji setting made for a gorgeous pickup game, even before all the dudes took off their T-shirts so we could see their abs. (They played skins and skins.) The court, surrounded by lush grass and palm trees, could have been the Indiana Pacers' NBA in-season tournament court.
But someone forgot to finish it. There was no baseline. This was fine outside of the paint, where the in-bounds blue contrasted with the out-of-bounds yellow. But the lane was yellow, which means the paint bled into the baseline with no distinction between the two. Unless house rules put the stanchion in play, there would be some fierce arguments under the basket.
The islanders—"This is what they call the contestants," my wife says—didn't run full court. That's good, because the opposite end of the court is missing half of the three-point line. It's like the construction crew just forgot to finish. I contacted NBCUniversal PR to ask them several pointed, annoying questions about the design and construction of the court. They did not reply, perhaps wisely, by publication time.
There was another notable feature: It had chain nets! In my experience these were once pretty common on playgrounds, but they've been phased out over the years. There is an obvious trade-off with them: Chain nets are much more durable than nylon ones, making them great for outdoor play, but they can also cause injuries. It's best to be safe, especially since chain nets tangle easily. That did happen on last night's episode.
But … oh, man, chain nets are so cool. The sound of a swish on a chain net is glorious. Forty-seven percent of Chris Seeley's free throws must've made a wonderful noise.
At the end of last night’s episode, the couple that had just decided to go exclusive was eliminated. My wife says they were the only couple that liked each other.
Update (2:55 p.m. ET): NBCUniversal PR has responded. The court was not constructed by Love Island USA set designers; it was a privately owned court rented for the game. As Nic said on the show: “Let's go! Basketball.”
