The Indiana Lyons battled local First Responders in their first preseason game of the 2023-24 season on Saturday, Oct. 7 in the Lyons Den, and the game video is now available.
See all the action and listen to our crack announcing team of Eric Ivie and Jim Holtsclaw by clicking here.
Here’s a little taste of what you’ll be in for.
As the Indiana Lyons seek to expand their fanbase, the reigning ABA champions will be playing two games during the 2023-24 season in a new venue: George Washington High School in Indianapolis.
The Lyons will host the St. Louis Spirits on Saturday, Oct. 21 at 5 p.m. ET at George Washington High School. Doors open at 4 p.m. ET.
The team will then host the Round Lake Bobcats on Saturday, Jan. 27 at 5 p.m. ET at the high school. Doors open at 4 p.m. ET for this game, too.
George Washington High School is located at 2215 W. Washington Street in Indianapolis.
Tickets will be sold at the door for $10/person. Children ages 6-11, seniors ages 55+, active military, military veterans, and first responders are $5/person.
Post-production game video will be available within 24 hours of the end of the game at Lyons Pride +.
The Lyons’ remaining home games during the preseason and regular season will be played at the Lyons Den, 49 N. Wayne Street, Danville, Indiana.
The defending ABA Champion Indiana Lyons are bringing even more content to their devoted Lyons Pride with a new weekly pre-game show called “The Lyons Roar” making its debut on Lyons Pride + during the last week in October, prior to the Nov. 4 season opener against the Burning River Buckets.
“The Lyons Roar” will be a weekly discussion between Eric Ivie — the Lyons’ play-by-play commentator in their game videos — and Jim Holtsclaw — the team’s color commentator — on a wide variety of topics relating to the Indiana Lyons, the American Basketball Association, and whatever else might come out of their mouths.
Eric and Jim will have a list of topics of discussion for each episode of “The Lyons Roar,” but their conversation about each topic will be entirely unscripted. Each episode will range from 15-30 minutes in length.
“This will be a great opportunity for diehard Lyons fans to gain some insight into the team, their upcoming opponents, and what’s going on around the ABA while hopefully enjoying some halfway decent entertainment,” said Eric. “Lyons Pride + separates the devoted fans from the casual fans, so it’s the perfect format for ‘The Lyons Roar.'”
Eric joined the Indiana Lyons staff as the Director of Communications in February of 2020 and has served in that role ever since. Lyons fans are familiar with his voice, commentary, emotional outbursts and antics throughout game videos over the past two seasons.
Jim came aboard late in the 2022-23 season, joining Eric in the broadcast of an intrasquad scrimmage before the Lyons traveled to St. Louis for the ABA Final Eight tournament. Jim and Eric were both in Missouri for the entire tournament that culminated in the Lyons’ ABA championship.
After their request to record and comment on the Lyons’ Final Eight games was denied by the ABA, the pair were in the stands for both of team’s games, doing their best to emulate the noise of the Lyons Pride in an empty gym. They were also in the gym on the night of the ABA Championship.
“That’s likely to be a topic of discussion in our first episode,” Eric added. “I’m often asked what happened in Missouri that night. Jim and I were there at Ground Zero for all of it, and we have stories to tell.”
Outside of basketball, Jim and Eric are good friends and coworkers at Hendricks County Parks & Recreation, so their chemistry in their videos is genuine.
To subscribe to Lyons Pride + and watch “The Lyons Roar,” click here.
by Eric Ivie
The Indiana Lyons held their first practice of the 2023-24 preseason last weekend as they prepare to defend their ABA Championship. People who know me often ask me for insights into the team and its goings-on, and while I’m obviously limited from laying all of the team’s cards out on the table for competitive reasons, I can share an inside view into a lot of things.
The Lyons’ practice included about 8-10 guys who are trying to join the roster for the upcoming season, along with most of the veterans from this past season. The new guys were invited to practice based on standing out from the 50 or so players who tried out for the team in July.
I have nothing to do with player selection, but I quietly observed the new guys as they ran through three hours of practice that included conditioning drills, skills drills, and some competitive gameplay.
There are a couple of new guys who piqued my interest based on their athleticism, current conditioning, effort, shooting, ball-handling, defense, and what I look at very closely: their attitudes, facial expressions, and body language on and off the court. I asked our new color commentator, Jim Holtsclaw, his thoughts on the new players — he has far more advanced basketball knowledge than I do — and he shared an interest in the same guys.
Lyons co-owner, CEO, and head coach Tyrone Brown also said that he’s paying close attention to one of the new players that I identified.
So we’ll see. There is still training camp and preseason for everyone to survive, but we certainly have a nice group of talented young athletes who are showing interest in the Indiana Lyons.
As for veterans, almost everyone was back from last year’s team. Lleon Tillman and Mike Pugh have retired. Scootee Walker is taking some time away from the team to focus on personal matters. I know why, and I can assure you that it’s good personal matters instead of bad personal matters, but I’ll respect Scootee’s privacy and leave it at that. Sounds like we may see #11 back on the court at some point this season, though.
The veterans who were at practice were Donnell Jones, Phil Bessick, Jordan Hidleburg, Tee Williams, Mike Carter, Jackson Stone, and Gerald “Cam” Campbell. Absent were Eric Messer and Kendric Lee. I heard Tyrone say that he knew Eric couldn’t be there and was fine with it, but I couldn’t hear what he said about Kendric’s absence. I think everything’s fine there, but I just couldn’t hear for sure over the noise in the gym.
All the veterans look to be in good shape, like they haven’t skipped a beat since April. That was good to see. Jackson continues to slim way down and show a lot more energy, speed, and endurance. He’s also sporting a shaved bald head. If you saw him when he joined the team in 2021-22, you’d barely recognize him now. I can’t even guess how much weight he has lost in the past year or more. The guy is a big kid at heart and a bundle of positive energy, and I love it!
There were some fireworks during practice between some of the veterans, but it was nothing more than raised voices. Pretty typical stuff when it comes to team sports, and I actually liked the fire in their bellies this early in the new season. I played high school football in Texas back in the dinosaur ages, and what I saw at the Lyons’ practice was nothing compared to what I experienced every day in Texas. Team sport athletes routinely have differences of opinion — especially those as competitive as the Lyons’ veterans are — and need to work things out amongst themselves. And our guys did. After practice, they were all hanging out together outside, chatting like the best of friends.
All told, it was a good day. The Lyons begin training camp in September and then start their preseason with the First Responders Game on Saturday, Oct. 7. If you haven’t already, check out the schedule here.
I hear rumor that Jordan Hidleburg is switching from #9 to #3 this season.
I’m liking Stone Wall Jackson as a new nickname for Jackson Stone. I might call him that in the preseason game videos and see how it works.
The Lyons were at the Indiana State Fair a few times this year, and while they were there, Tyrone struck up a conversation with the GM of the TBL’s Kokomo Bobkats. (TBL = The Basketball League) Tyrone implies that the Lyons and the Bobkats might be cooking up some sort of partnership with each other, but he’s playing this one close to the vest for now, so you now know what I know about that.
If you haven’t already seen it, the Lyons are offering multi-game ticket packages this season. Buy a 3-, 5- or 7-game package and use them at any games you want. It’s a money-saver to purchase the packages, too!
The team will be offering another jersey-for-tickets deal that’s going to be released in September and will get you into games for free if you purchase a jersey for yourself! Watch our social media and this website for more information on the ticket deal starting next week.
One of the new teams that we play against this season is the Columbus Wizards. They’re from Columbus, Ohio, not from Indiana. The Ohio Bruins’ ownership went their separate ways after last season (the Bruins still exist, and we play them this year), and one of those owners now owns and operates the Columbus Wizards. Makes for a nice weekend road trip when we can stay in the same town for both days.
Did you see the Louisville Pros on the schedule for this season? They are the former Naptown Pros, now relocated to Louisville.
Don’t read anything into the fact that we don’t play against the Clarksville Phoenix this season. They’re still around, and they’re in the Red Division of the Central Region with us. The two teams just couldn’t coordinate their schedules. It happens. I’m sure we’ll see them in the postseason.
Speaking of the new league alignment, don’t even get me started on that. Maybe that’ll be a topic for a future blog post.
I’ve heard rumor that the Music City Jazz aren’t returning to the ABA, in case you were wondering about them, too. They’ve been playing year-round in other leagues, so maybe they found a new home that suits them better? I don’t know. At any rate, we don’t have any regular season games scheduled against them.
Eric Ivie is the Director of Communications for the Indiana Lyons and also the team’s play-by-play commentator in their game videos. His opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the Indiana Lyons or team owners Tyrone and Deborah Brown.
The 2022-23 American Basketball Association (ABA) Champion Indiana Lyons have unveiled a new premium content feature through their website IndianaLyons.com, which provides fans access to a wide variety of exclusive content all year round: Lyons Pride +.
Purple Membership to Lyons Pride + is $99.99 per year, and the team does post content year-round, even during the offseason. Billed annually, the Purple Membership averages out to just $8.33 per month.
Teal Membership to Lyons Pride + is $19.99 per month. It provides fans with the exact same access as that of the Purple Membership but is designed for those who are more comfortable taking things one month at a time.
Memberships to Lyons Pride + are payable online by credit card or PayPal during the registration process. Both memberships renew automatically until the customer cancels their membership through their online account overview profile.
Members of Lyons Pride + will enjoy post-production videos of all preseason and regular season Indiana Lyons games, including graphics and play-by-play and color commentary by Eric Ivie and Jim Holtsclaw, whether the games are played at home in the Lyons Den or on the road. Eric and Jim travel with the team on road trips.
Post-production game videos are generally posted within 24 hours of the game’s conclusion.
The Lyons will also record all postseason games as allowed by the ABA (recall, however, that the team was prohibited from doing so by the league during the 2022-23 Final Eight in Missouri on their way to the championship, so keep that in mind).
The Lyons do not broadcast their games live, and the team will no longer be posting post-production game videos to YouTube until the season is over.
“Our game videos are simply too valuable to just give away for free anymore,” said Indiana Lyons co-owner and CEO Tyrone Brown. “Our coaches and players work too hard to allow the fruits of their labor to be seen for free by people who have never and will never come to our games, by opponents who wish to scout us, and by casual viewers on YouTube from around the world. Advertisers are also benefitting from our free videos by YouTube placing their ads in our videos without any benefit to the players who are performing their craft in those videos.”
Proceeds from Lyons Pride + subscriptions will go toward travel expenses, team operations, and other means of supporting the Indiana Lyons players. The Lyons’ ownership collects no profit since they put all proceeds right back into the organization, and the Lyons’ staff is made up entirely of unpaid volunteers.
“Each video is also a product of many hours of work and of intellectual property that Eric and Jim are donating to the Lyons for the team’s benefit,” continued Brown. “We’re doing Eric and Jim, our other volunteers, our players, our coaches, and our organization a disservice and rendering their efforts meaningless by giving those videos away for free.”
As the franchise evolves and enters its sixth season, the exposure to the team gained by free game videos has become stagnant and has been dwarfed by the exposure that has resulted from the Indiana Lyons becoming ABA Champions. Free game videos no longer serve any purpose, and Lyons Pride + allows the team full control of their own media without any advertisements that aren’t purchased by Lyons sponsors and partners.
In addition to game videos, members of Lyons Pride + will have exclusive access to team and player statistics throughout the season, premium written and video content, coupons for savings at the Lyons Den on game days, and more goodies as the platform is further developed.
Lyons Pride + is run entirely through the Lyons’ website by the Lyons organization, and by subscribing to the new service and logging in, fans can view everything at IndianaLyons.com without any interruption.
Fans who are not subscribed to Lyons Pride + can still access plenty of free content at IndianaLyons.com. The Lyons’ schedule, ticket information, basic player profiles, and some written content will still be available for free.
Whether you’re a fan who comes to every game or an out-of-town fan, you’ll enjoy the premium content of Lyons Pride +. Take your status in the Lyons Pride a step further, join the hunt, and subscribe today to Lyons Pride + by clicking here!
