Hoops-loving Sen.-elect Brown calls out hoops-loving Obama for basketball game at White House

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Sen.-elect Brown calls out Obama for hoops

CHICOPEE, Mass. — Sen.-elect Scott Brown says if President Barack Obama wants to reach out to this particular Republican, he can do it on the White House basketball court.

The newly elected successor to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy has been telling everyone from his election night victory party crowd to comedian Jay Leno he’s pining for a game against the hoops-crazy president.

As he kicked off a three-day Massachusetts thank-you tour on Friday, Brown joked that if Obama is serious about courting the GOP, the Democrat can speak with him over a friendly game.

“I think it would be fun,” Brown told The Associated Press. “It’s not the Olympics, but I think it would be a good way to kind of break the ice and show the camaraderie that he’s talking about. So, we can have our meeting on the basketball court instead of the caucus room.”

Brown set one condition for the proposed match between him, his daughter Ayla, and the president: Obama has to pick a female teammate.

Obama regularly plays with a potential ringer, his personal aide, Reggie Love. He is a former member of Duke University’s esteemed basketball team.

That’s not to say the Browns are slouches: The senator-elect played college ball at Tufts University, while Ayla is a Division I scholarship player at Boston College.

“Downtown Scott Brown,” as the senator-elect was known, also said the southpaw president can’t plan on blocking just one shot.

“I’m a shooter; I can shoot anywhere,” he said with a laugh.