Sports column: Basketball's big tip-off

The 2014/15 Irish basketball season gets under way this weekend, starting a year where Irish hoops could finally start looking ahead with confidence.

Basketball Ireland is a classic Celtic Tiger story, they over-spent, they mis-spent, they got in debt, and then they got in trouble. Ireland has spent nearly five years without a national senior team for men or women, weighed down by debts built up and sanctions from the Sports Council.

There ...