NEWS RELEASE BASKETBALL was conceived in the hearts and minds of a group of young Christian men in 1973 in Los Angeles, California. These men had a desire to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the people of Western and Eastern Europe. The spiritual landscape in Europe then and now is reflective of life apart from God. Western Europe became a spiritual desert as people turned away from Christ and turned to the popular secular philosophies and false religions of the 20th Century. For a long time Christianity in Eastern Europe was suppressed by the various communist regimes. Now, in Europe and around the world, people are desperately seeking for something beyond themselves to trust and believe in.