U.S. Basketball Academy to get another shot.

Byline: Joe Mosley The Register-Guard

BLUE RIVER - It will be the same game but a different name on the bottom line for the United States Basketball Academy.

The financially challenged,10-year-old institution of hoop awareness and next-door neighbor to Tokatee Golf Course is likely to be under new ownership within a month, according to the academy's current owner and its would-be purchaser.

Founder and President Bruce O'Neil said he has reached a tentative agreement to sell the basketball academy for about $15 million to a New Jersey development company that is made up largely of former professional athletes. O'Neil would remain in charge of the camp's operations, and would continue to build relationships with Chinese national basketball organizations, while new owner Pro R.E. Developers would take over the USBA's business end, according to both parties to the deal.

"It will allow us to go out and do what we do best," O'Neil said. "We've been a small company for so long, trying to go out and compete in the big arena. This will give us, and our investors, a chance to get a decent return on what has been invested at this point - and for some (investors), an opportunity to be involved in the new company."

O'Neil opened the United States Basketball Academy 10 years ago on a 45-acre property near Blue River. The former college coach envisioned a camp dedicated to improving the skills of high school and college players, but the academy's focus has shifted as Asian countries - China, in particular - have shown a growing interest in the sport over the past several years, O'Neil said.

The sale, if approved by the academy's past investors, would get the USBA out of a financial hole, O'Neil said.

Poor cash flow resulting from under-capitalization and sometimes late payments from large, overseas clients has left O'Neil scrambling to make ends meet, he said.

For instance, Lane County filed a lawsuit against O'Neil and the basketball academy this month in Lane County Circuit Court, seeking $210,000 in overdue payments - along with interest and penalties - of the transient room tax that all businesses must pay if they provide lodging to the public.

The basketball camp began collecting the tax from overnight visitors in September 1998 but made no payments to the county until August 2005, after the county had billed the academy for the past-due amounts, the lawsuit maintains. The camp made several payments over the following year, but hasn't paid the county anything since September 2006, according to the lawsuit.

"I don't question that," O'Neil said. "Sometimes, (other businesses) let property taxes get in arrears. We let this go, and with our cash flow, it just got deeper and deeper."

Mike Gallagher, managing partner of Pro R.E. Developers, said his group is aware of the academy's debts and will take care of them as soon as the sale agreement is formalized.

"Those are just the typical senior debt on the real estate, and it's a familiar component for us," Gallagher said. "We had wished this (sale) would already be long-closed, so we could help the USBA and Bruce fulfill some of the obligations they have. And that's happening right now."

Gallagher and O'Neil said they expect the deal to be completed within 30 days.

Lane County Counsel Teresa Wilson said her office has not heard from the USBA since the county filed its lawsuit on June 4, but will be glad to work with O'Neil and the academy's new owners to settle the debt. "But we do have the county's interests to look out for," she added.

The Lane County Board of Commissioners used money from the county's road fund to help build an entry road into the basketball academy when O'Neill constructed the facility in the 1990s.

Gallagher's partners include Bart Oates, a former NFL Pro Bowl center for the New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers, and former National Hockey League player Ken Daneyko, according to the Web site of a New Jersey resort project with which the group is involved. Peter Brooker, a former vice president of the A&P supermarket chain, is listed as the company's chief financial officer.

The development company is involved in real estate and entertainment projects valued at more than $4 billion, the Web site says. Gallagher said his firm is working on the 9,500-unit Riverbend Crossing golf course and residential development in Tunica County, Miss.; the Wildwood Walk resort in Wildwood, New Jersey; and the proposed Riverbend Metropolitan project, also in New Jersey.

Gallagher said he and O'Neil met through mutual acquaintances in the world of real estate and Christian athletes, and "saw the Lord opening some doors up" for the chance to work together. The deal will allow Gallagher's development company to take advantage of the inroads O'Neil has made over the past several years with China's sports and entertainment leaders.

"Those are areas that we've been working on ourselves, so there are a lot of synergies between our two companies," Gallagher said.

The USBA opened its doors in 1997, after O'Neil worked for several years to find backing for his dream.

The Roseburg native played for and then coached basketball at the University of Hawaii before returning to Oregon with the idea of a camp where high school and college players could train during the off-season.

But soon after opening, opportunities arose to tap a growing basketball market in Asia, and O'Neill began to shift the academy's focus.

The USBA still offers six to seven weeks of kids' camps each summer, but its largest clients have become organizations such as the Chinese Basketball League, the Asian Basketball Confederation and the Chinese Ministry of School Sports.

"We've been perceived in the foreign markets as much bigger than we are," O'Neil said. "In China, we're talked about in the same breath as the NBA, because we've been there longer."

He describes the USBA's Asian affiliations as "opportunities we couldn't resist, and sometimes couldn't finance properly."

But he said the financial backing of the new ownership group will allow him to continue his work without any significant changes in the academy's operations or in his vision for its future.

And the deal will allow the USBA's original backers a chance to get paid off if they choose not to be a part of the new ownership.

O'Neil declined to list all of the academy's investors, but former longtime NBA head coach Bob Hill and former NBA player Jay Humpheries

have been previously identified as investors. Other pros who have been affiliated with the academy - either by coaching at its camps or actively promoting its programs - have included Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who played for the L.A. Lakers, and Shaquille O'Neal with the Miami Heat.

"What I want to do is give the people who believed in us a fair return (on their investments)," O'Neil said. "At least they'll have an option soon. And I haven't been able to give them an option since we started."