Dog days over as Ireland reliving hoop dreams

It’s not quite something anyone’s roaring from the rafters or the rooftops but it’s not quite a whisper either. Word is out: Hoops is hopping again. Hip again. Happening.

Kieran Donaghy has noticed it almost everywhere he goes. When he first walked into a Kerry dressing room, about the only other basketballers any of them had heard of were Michael Jordan and Michael Quirke.

Now there’s a good group in there that can give him the breakdown of Russell Westbrook’s latest triple double from the previous night or update him that Anthony Davis went for 44 and 18 in a nice win for the Pelicans.