MONTERREY, Mexico -- As time ticked down, the gymnasium crowd, egged on by the public address announcer, started chanting "Cien! Cien! Cien!" in anticipation of the home team, Fuerza Regia, hitting the century mark against Correcaminos in this northern Mexican city. From the low-post position, Fuerza Regia forward Adrian Zamora put the ball on the floor and sent up a soft jump shot with less than 10 seconds left. But it bounced off the rim. Correcaminos got the rebound, ran the floor and saved some dignity with a buzzer-beating bucket. Final score: Fuerza Regia 98, Correcaminos 84.
The result was no surprise. Fuerza Regia, which reeled off 22 straight wins to open the season, sits atop the table in the Liga Nacional de Baloncesto Profesional (LNBP), or National Professional Basketball League. Correcaminos UAT -- the Autonomous University of Tamaulipas Roadrunners, named for the state school in Ciudad Victoria that runs the team -- are in the cellar of Mexico's top pro league with about one month left in the season, which tipped off in October.
The gap between these two franchises goes beyond the scoreboard and standings. That Dec. 20 contest was a tale of contrasting teams -- one rich, one poor; one laden with stars, the others playing journeymen and hopefuls; one with a big-name coach, the other in the midst of coaching upheaval; one from Mexico's wealthiest metropolitan area, the other from a troubled corner of the country consumed by drug cartel dangers; one obsessed with winning its first title, the other trying to serve a social mission.
Such are the contrasts of the LNBP, a 10-team circuit covering an eclectic constellation of cities -- major markets Mexico City and Guadalajara are notable omissions -- with gymnasiums in the range of 2,000 to 6,000 seats. Monthly salaries run from around $15,000 for the top players to $1,000 for bench players on lesser teams.
It's a league that has ambitions of breaking into the big time and turning basketball into the country's next big thing.
LNBP president Sergio Ganem, who also owns Fuerza Regia, has an ambitious 85-point improvement plan to do just that, starting with establishing franchises in major markets, broadcasting more games on TV and the internet and improving refereeing, a regular target of complaint among players.
The NBA is doing its part to bolster the country's basketball base this week with a pair of games in Mexico City. The Phoenix Suns faced the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday and will take on the San Antonio Spurs at 6 p.m. ET on Saturday.
Strength at the top
The LNBP, however, is a far cry from the NBA, with plenty of growing pains since making its debut in 2000. For example, the Cancún-based defending champion, Pioneros de Quintana Roo, couldn't even field a team this season, because state government sponsorship money stopped flowing -- a business model based on political connections that Ganem says the LNBP is doing away with.
On the other end of the league's financial spectrum is Fuerza Regia -- Fuerza means force or strength in Spanish and Regia refers to Monterrey natives. The franchise doesn't depend on government largess, according to team officials, but has resources other rivals in the LNBP could only dream of, including sponsorship deals for nine corporate logos on their jerseys, ranging from Sprite to banks to bus lines to hotels. The team has used its wealth to sign much of the Mexican men's national team along with internationally respected coach Francisco "Paco" Olmos.
"[Fuerza Regia] is a club with 15 years of history," said Olmos, a Spaniard who came to Monterrey after successful stints in his homeland and Puerto Rico. "It has a great fan base. But it wanted improve the sports side. Fuerza Regia is hoping to do something big here. The project seduced me."
"This team, they could give a high-major [NCAA] team a run for their money," Correcaminos forward Grandy Glaze, a Canadian who played college ball at Saint Louis University and Grand Canyon University, said of Fuerza Regia. "They could beat a lot of mid-major teams, but I don't think they could beat Kentucky."
"This team I'm on now, Monterrey, is one of the most professional teams I've been on in 19 years," said American Andy Panko, a well-traveled veteran of international basketball who was the 2012 MVP of Spain's vaunted pro league.
Panko, 39, once had a cup of coffee in the NBA -- just 33 seconds with the Atlanta Hawks in 2001 -- and has crossed paths with the likes of Pau and Marc Gasol, Ricky Rubio and Serge Ibaka.
"I'm friends with all of them," Panko said over breakfast at the business hotel -- akin to a budget Holiday Inn Express -- where the Fuerza Regia players live.
With his family in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Panko spends his free time in Monterrey at a desk overlooking a tennis court, minding a sports performance business back home via the internet and watching Fox News -- "It's the only English channel we get," he said.
In the past, Fuerza Regia made international headlines by signing the likes of 7-foot-9 inch Chinese giant Sun Mingming and five-time NBA champion and notorious bad boy Dennis Rodman.
"We wanted to make a media impact," said Ganem, a youthful and energetic 36-year-old fond of slick suits. He says Rodman was signed in 2004 as a spokesman but insisted on suiting up after arriving in Monterrey.
"He's an excellent guy," Ganem said. "I have a friendship with him to this day."
Local fans say Fuerza Regia has toned down the promotional sizzle this season to focus on trying to win its first LNBP championship. But the team still strives to put on a show beyond the game.
Pregame activities include familiar fare: loud music, smoke, cheerleaders and the exploits of a mascot named Chango Regio who resembles the Phoenix Suns Gorilla. Tickets cost less than $10, and a liter of Coors Light sells for about $4.
It's affordable entertainment in Monterrey, a metropolitan area of 4 million people with strong industrial and manufacturing sectors and pockets of extreme wealth.
"When there's a top team [here] this place is full," said David Cantú, a 25-year-old engineer and fan who was wandering the court with a beer in hand after the game, surrounded by families shooting hoops and players signing autographs. "[Attendance] is low tonight because Correcaminos is in last place."
'Social project' on a shoestring budget
It's not all gloom and doom for Correcaminos, although university ownership in a professional league presents its peculiarities. They've reached the league finals twice, winning it all in 2002, and fell just short against the top seed in last year's playoffs. They also claim an active fan base, outdrawing the Ciudad Victoria's second-division soccer club of the same name, according to Juan Manuel Alonzo Robledo, the basketball team's manager and sporting director.
But they can't compete financially with the likes of Fuerza Regia. Robledo figures he spends about 30 percent of what the Monterrey franchise does, the product of the team's ownership situation and a scarcity of sponsorship opportunities in Ciudad Victoria.
"With what Monterrey pays Andy Panko and one other player, we could cover our entire payroll," Robledo said over lunch at a Sirloin Stockade buffet after practice.
For their Dec. 20 game in Monterrey, Correcaminos were led by Luis Moreno, who was promoted to interim head coach the previous day, replacing Luis Garcia, and was only a month removed from coaching a high school squad. The job has since been handed to Lino Frattin, who has dual U.S. and Italian citizenship and brings experience as an NBA scout and an Italian league head coach.
Moreno, who has returned to his role as a Correcaminos assistant, referred to the team as "humilde," a word that means humble but also is a polite term for poor. He offered that description after the team's pregame practice, at which Correcaminos had arrived on a beat-up bus after motoring straight from Ciudad Victoria, 175 miles southeast of Monterrey. Traveling on game day, Moreno said, "saves the expense of staying an extra night."
Robledo explained that Correcaminos is "a social project" sponsored by its university owner, which does not charge admission and sees the team as a recreational outlet for residents of a city beset by violence. Ciudad Victoria, about 200 miles south of the Texas border, is capital of Tamaulipas state, which appears on the map like a bloated No. 7 in the northeast corner of Mexico.
Drug cartels have plagued Tamaulipas in recent years. A gubernatorial candidate was assassinated on the eve of the 2010 election by the Los Zetas cartel, and citizens travel among cities in convoys to stay safe.
Residents stay off the streets at night, a practice also followed by Correcaminos players. Weekday games in Ciudad Victoria tip off at 6 p.m., and weekend matinees start at noon. The team travels during the daylight hours in their bus, except for games in far-flung destinations such as Ciudad Juárez and Mexicali, which are reached via commercial flights. (Fuerza Regia flies for most of its road trips.)
If there's concern about being based in Ciudad Victoria, the players, who live in a group house with a private cook and two helpers, downplay it. Most seem grateful for the opportunity to play pro ball.
"My girlfriend and I saw that it was the fourth-most dangerous city in Mexico," said Glaze, the league's leading rebounder. "During the day it's nice. There's not a lot to do, but the weather is nice, and there are good places to eat. I found a home in Victoria."
Shooting guard Kennedy Jones Jr., the league's leading scorer, grew up in Chicago and played junior college ball before finding his way south to Mexico. He played in pickup tournaments in isolated and indigenous villages across southern Mexico for purses as large as 100,000 pesos (roughly $5,000 US) before signing with Correcaminos to gain pro experience.
"I've been to a lot more dangerous places in Mexico," he said. "I know how to handle myself."
Reggie Okosa, a La Salle University product, played internationally for more than a decade, with paying gigs on every continent except Australia and Antarctica, before joining Correcaminos midseason.
"I played in Baghdad," Okosa said. "I'm not afraid."
Okosa, who compared Ciudad Victoria to small-town Texas, wound up spending less than a month there. He opted out of his contract after Christmas and signed with a team in China, where he said his salary would be four times higher.
When asked via Facebook Messenger to compare China, where he has played before, with Mexico, Okosa simply responded: "Better. Just better."
Playing by the 'Mexican rules'
Said Panko of the Mexican league: "It is what it is. It's not very athletic. It's just kind of run-and-gun, one-pass shot, almost like street ball."
And like street ball, it's physical. Glaze referred to the style as "Mexican rules."
"There's lots of hand-checking," said Zamora, who was born in California, played at Montana State and has been a member of the Mexican national team. "You can put two hands on a guy -- or at least they won't call it."
"They're all undersized here," said Panko, who is 6-foot-9. "Normally a 3, small forward, plays the 4. A 4-man here plays the 5. Here, they just drill you. I'm posting up here, there's a smaller guy guarding me. What's he doing? He is drilling me every time, and the referee is watching, letting him get away with it."
In that kind of environment, preparation is essential.
"There is a big difference [in the league] between who trains the most and who doesn't, who is tactically prepared and who isn't," Moreno, an architect by trade, said before his first game as Correcaminos' interim head coach.
Two days later, Correcaminos and Fuerza Regia squared off again in Monterrey. As in the previous game, Correcaminos was outplayed from the outset in a lopsided loss.
"It's David vs. Goliath," Robledo quipped in the third quarter as Fuerza Regia took a 20-point lead.
Mercifully for Correcaminos, though, the winning score again stayed under 100.