The International Basketball League ( IBL ) was a semi-professional men's basketball league featuring teams from the West Coast of the United States . In 2010 the Albany Legends became the first team in the Northeastern United States to join. The IBL also sometimes featured teams from China and Japan which temporarily relocated to the United States for the IBL season. The IBL season typically ran from the end of March through July.
7-793: The Arizona Flame , formerly the Phoenix Flame and the Scottsdale Flame , were an International Basketball League (IBL) team based in Casa Grande, Arizona . The team played home games at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum and on the campus of Grand Canyon University . The Flame was the Phoenix's first minor league basketball team since the Phoenix Eclipse folded after the 2001–02 American Basketball Association season. It
14-510: The league expanded to 17 by the start of the season in April 2005. Each team played approximately 20 regular season games, most of them centered on their home region, with the teams with the two best records playing in a championship game at the end of the season. The Battle Creek Knights won the inaugural title by going undefeated in the regular season and beating the Dayton Jets in the finals. In
21-643: The league featured rules designed to create a fast-paced, high-scoring brand of basketball . Duilio first began planning for the league with a series of test games in Portland and Seattle in November 2003. These games featured a mixture of traditional college and NBA rules, plus two rules created specifically for the league: The test games proved popular and resulted in the founding of the IBL in August 2004. Founded with eight teams,
28-551: The league's first year, the up-tempo rules resulted in the average team scoring 126.9 points per game, nearly 30 points more than the NBA team average in 2004–05, and slightly higher than the NBA record for points per game by a team in a single season, set by the Denver Nuggets in 1981–82. In 2010, the league launched a winter season which saw nine different teams compete. Four teams played an entire schedule and thus made them eligible for
35-485: The playoffs. In July 2011, Duilio sold the league to Vancouver , Washington , businessman Bryan Hunter. Sharleen Graf was appointed as the league's new commissioner. In March 2014 the IBL ceased operation as an independent entity and combined with the West Coast Basketball League (WCBL). Teams were split into an 'International Conference' and 'Continental Conference' based on geography. The owner of
42-579: Was owned by Stephen Moss-Kelley, professional basketball player and former IBL all-star. When the team was announced in June 2006, the Flame named their home venue as North Phoenix Baptist Church. By October 2006, the Arizona Republic listed Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum as the team's home venue. Tickets for the Flame's opening season were eight dollars for adults and four dollars for children. Maury "Mo" Samilton
49-631: Was the team's head coach in 2007. On February 19, 2007, the Phoenix Flame owners acquired a new IBL franchise, the Arizona Lightning . The Lightning announced they would begin play for the 2008 IBL season. It was the second active professional minor league basketball team in the Arizona. The Lightning hit the court in 2007 as a traveling team for the IBL. International Basketball League Founded by Portland area sports promoter Mikal Duilio,
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