Up in the Air at Sea

Makes you wonder how the players will fare if they're prone to seasickness ..

Seems Michigan State is planning to play a basketball game — likely against North Carolina — on an aircraft carrier.

Tom Izzo's bunch will undoubtedly be looking for a new challenge on Veteran's Day 2011 — the likely day of the game. (This, according to a well-placed source whose big clue was the red-white-and-blue 11-11-11 painted on the floor at the Breslin Center.) That would be in the middle of preseason games next season. Whether the Spartans win it all at the end of this season remains to be seen.

But back to the aircraft carrier. So it's a mammoth ship, right? And it's anchored and docked and all the rest of it. It's not going anywhere. But it would still be moving, if only slightly. So the crossover dribble would have an extra hitch in its step, the three-point would have a fraction of extra oomph on it, and the long free throws wouldn't get that friendly bounce-back off the back of the rim. And those are only some of the difficulties the players would have to overcome.

Then there's the security issue. An aircraft carrier isn't exactly the same kind of venue as a basketball arena. For starters, the carrier is owned by the U.S. Military. All players, coaches, staff, girlfriends, wives, dogs and cats would have to be searched meticulously for every practice, team meeting and (of course) the game. Then there are the fans. A quick Internet search didn't turn up reliable figures for how many basketball fans could fit on an aircraft carrier, but this made-for-prime-time event probably wouldn't be played in front of only the sailors onboard. So all of the fans would have to be searched meticulously as well. That might be more time and effort than many fans want to spend on cheering on their favorite team. But the possibility of a Tar Heels-Spartans matchup might be enough to pull enough people in to make the experience worthwhile.

Also on the cards is the possible warmup game to be played by the basketball teams of two of the nation's service academies. We could be looking at an all-new variant on Army-Navy.