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Week Five Part One Recap
Welcome to the fifth week of the season as we start to settle into the near-mid point of Season 55. I believe for the first time this year we had two player on player matchups, though one wasn't nearly as competitive as it should have been.

#3 DVine Lions vs. #3 YGT
DVine (6-3) made an interesting choice, benching the leading scorer of the league, PG Erik Scuppa (10 points in 13 minutes) alongside SF (turned SG Saturday night) Darren Basham. 19 year old American Garland Villegas instead point for the Lions, scoring 15 points with 5 assists, including 4 turnovers. Backup SF Israel Silverman lead the way to victory with 29 points on 13-27. Their run and gun attack was and because they put more effort into the game that YGT (5-4), they led by 28 at the half before finishing them off 112-47. YGT looks like they're starting to figure out schedule and gamesmanship, but they've got a lot of work to do to still make the playoffs and their lineup choices are a bit interesting, choosing to start 5 guards in a weird sort of small ball.

#2 I Volt vs. #1 Lion Rebels
The premiere matchup of the weekend, everyone was eager to see if I Volt's (7-2) depth in their roster would be able to take down the recently Division III demoted Lion Rebels (9-0), but even with the ferocity of their effort and up tempo offense combined with their press they were unable to pull the game off, losing 115-91. Volt was able to pressure the Rebels into 27 turnovers on the night with their full court press, but just didn't have the offensive fire power to pull this off, shooting only 29% from the field, including 4-29 from three. The Rebels, meanwhile, were still able to shoot 54% and dominated the glass for nearly 30 more rebounds, 74-48. I Volt shot the ball a lot, 118 times, with their primary four scorers shooting 27, 19, 29, and 14 times...they just couldn't hit anything. PG Romus Gasiniauskas (18 points 9 rebounds) and SF Maksymilian Korecki (18 pts 6 steals) led the way but it wasn't enough as C Terry Armstead and PF Ryan Singh each had a double double on the night.

Sneaker Geeks vs. #2 OmegaShot
The still not bot OmegaShot easily defeated the geeks 135-52 - it was a lot uglier before the fourth, but sitting their stars for the fourth led the geeks score 25 points in the final frame. SG Lars Volkner had himself a night, scoring 25 points on 11-15 while C Bican Okar grabbed 18 rebs.

#1 Duluth dirty dogs vs. Louisville Cardinals
Duluth had no trouble dispatching the cardinals, but did give up 63 points to the cardinals, 150-63. Once again Chen Chun Yeung had himself a night, scoring 28 points on 10-15, including 6-7 from the charity stripe to go along with 6 assists PF Bob Joyner put up 22 points to go along with his 16 rebounds, including 8 assists, 5 steals, and 4 blocks.

#4 FR-S vs. Trumps
Super clean game here for FR-S (6-3) winning 109-75. They spread the ball around and had six players in double digits. Two standout stats on the night - FR-S had 42 assists on the night, but they also had 19 fouls which led to the Trumps making 13-18 from the line to make it a little bit closer than it should have been. Backup guard Tyberiusz Swieboda had 18 points in two minutes to go with his 8 assists.

Week Five Part Two Recap
Another week with two player on player matchups! Exciting! Here are the highlights from last night's games.

YGT (5-5) vs. Duluth dirty dogs (10-0)
YGT, clinging to third place in the Big 8, had no chance going up against the seasoned Duluth dirty dogs, and that proved to be true, with the dogs dominating YGT for a 90 point victor, 147-57. Even though YGT put in more effort, their low salaried starting five was simply no match with leading scorer 21 year old American Center Barney Grantham scoring only 14 points on 7-12 shooting, but could only muster 5 rebounds to go along with his 5 turnovers.

Meanwhile, recently recovered from injury, PF Hank Saylor was given another night off - the media is speculating that even though Duluth's team doctor proclaimed his bruised knee healed, that Saylor wasn't ready to test it out quite yet, even though his contractual bonuses for making the all star game are on the line now that he's missed a full week of games. But PG Iago Cardelle stepped up, shooting 9-13 from the field, with 2 three pointers to score 20 points and C Omar Sellers scored an individual season high of 20 points on 9-11 shooting to go along with 11 rebounds and 4 blocks to help dominate YGT in a blow out.

OmegaShot (9-1) vs. DVine Lions (6-4)
The fast paced match up between Omega and DVine ended up not being as close as anticipated even though Omega hasn't managed their effort in any shape or form this season. The working theory was that even though DVine has only been playing effectively 8 players, because they out spent on top 5 players by $30k over Omega, they'd still be able to win, especially at home, but Game Shape appears to be costing them honest chances at improving their play off position on the season. The trio of Scuppa, Dalton, and Basham put up 26, 24, & 33 points respectively, but Scuppa only shot 31% from the field including missing 11 three pointers on the night. Dalton didn't fair much better, missing 9. IF, and that's a big IF, they had been able to nail 80% of their three pointers, they could have pulled this off, but with their current game shape, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, they are not! For Omega, Lithuanian small forward, filling in at backup SG for the Shot, Aleksejs Albergs had a nice night off the bench, scoring 18 points in 16 minutes for a 12.0 rating.

On to the player on bot matchups:

Lion Rebels (10-0) vs. Edmonton Earthquakes (3-7)
The Rebels ended up fouling more aggressively than they typically do, sending the Earthquakes to the line 12 times, where they scored an additional 9 points to get over 51 points on the game, but that wasn't enough to match as they lost 117-51. That's the third highest scoring total the Lion Rebels have given up this year. PF Ryan Singh had a nice night, scoring 18 points, with 13 rebounds, & 8 assists.

(to be continued)

Last edited by Baine at 11/10/2021 12:26:37 PM

Week Five Part Two Recaps Continued

Frosty BC (3-7) vs. I Volt (8-2)
I Volt recovered well from Saturday night's loss, scoring 164 points to Frosty's 74 for the 90 point victory, but it appears they played a normal effort level again. The 164 points scored led to 8 (nearly 9) players scoring in double digits, but backup Center Ante Dekoviccame in and played 32 minutes on the night scoring 29 points to go alongside 18 rebounds on 12-15 shooting. Starting PF Adelardo Martin snagged an offensive rebound with 2:53 left in the second and tried to get it back in, but Frosty's backup PF Nate Leggett flagrantly fouled Martin and he came off the court at that time. Dekovic had been in the game at the time, and came off to get a breather. At the start of the second half, the 7'0 Dekovic played center, while starting center Sun Bingham slid over to PF and Dekovic had himself a night, scoring 23 points in the second half. Bizarrely enough, Negget's flagrant foul left Martin with a case of the stomach virus and he continues to be out for at least another week!

LAGB (1-9) vs. FR-S (7-3)
FR-S (third in the Great 8), easily dispatched of their bot matchup without much drama, 116-52. Six players hit double digits in scoring, but SF Bruno Zurlo scored 21 points in 28 minutes while collecting 7 rebounds to help lead the way.

One more week to the all star game! Good luck everyone.

Last edited by Baine at 11/10/2021 12:26:00 PM

Week Six Part One Recap

Technically two player on player games from Saturday night, though OmegaShot would go on to botify, only to be replaced by Bilodeau, led by manager Celtics (welcome to the league! Good luck and let us know if you have any questions).

Duluth dirty dogs vs. OmegaShot
OmegaShot (9-2) put up a valiant effort, but their lack of defense did them in. They hung pretty tight with Duluth (11-0), but at the end of the day, couldn't keep up the pace even though they scored 40 points in the final period. The Argentinian SF Nehemias Orduna put up 39 points on 17-22 shooting, including 5-8 from three, but now, at 36, finds himself on the transfer list. At $20 per week, the current asking price of just over $200k seems quite steep for the forward, even though he's averaging 19 points per game on 51% shooting. His German counterpart Lars Volkner, also 36, scored 37 points in his final game with Omega and finds himself in a similar situation on the transfer list.

On the other side of the court, Duluth's PG, Iago Cardelle had himself a night, shooting 17-33 for 47 points, his best performance of the season. Iago has been quite good this season and C B. Okar handled the boards and assists for the team, though he did have 6 turnovers on the night, with 15 and 8 respectively.

FR-S vs. Lion Rebels
The other player on player matchup was more of a defensive battle, with FR-S (7-4) deploying the Patient strategy to try and eke out a win over the 11-0 Lion Rebels, and while Greek SG Ioannis Trapenzanidis scored 31 points in 31 minutes and FR-S led at the half 37-32 thanks to a defensive performance that held the Rebels to only 11 2nd quarter points, they were unable to contain them in the 2nd half, which the Rebels scoring 51 to FR-S's 37 to pull out the victory. 19 year old Kurt Brown scored 25 points to go along with 8 rebounds and 5 assists, but if he hopes to help the Rebels out long term, he's got to avoid giving up 8 turnovers and 4 fouls. Star C. Terry Armstead finished the night with a double double, scoring 19 points and tallying 24 rebounds.

I Volt vs. Tomahawks
The Great 8's 2nd place team, I Volt (9-2) destroyed the Tomahawks, 134-63 with another well rounded effort by the Volt with 7 players in double digits and the team, altogether shot 61% from the field, including 56% from three on 16 shots from beyond the arc.

DVine Lions vs. Trumps
The Great 8 version of the Lions dominated Trumps, 117-83. The Lions continue to play 6 players per game, but this time Erik Scuppa only played 28 minutes at PG and only scored 9 points, while Basham and Dalton scored 37 and 34 points respectively.

Northampton Acid vs. YGT
YGT continues to trot out subpar players and it cost them in this bot matchup going up two with 17 seconds left only for Richard Nunn to hit a 3 with ten seconds remaining to put Northampton up by one. PG Franklin Moore, for YGT, got off a last second shot from the top of the arc, but bricked it and Northampton went home with the victory.

Week Six Part Two Recap
Second round of games in week six had no player on player matchups for the first time this season. We'll keep this update relatively short, only noting the highly notable players from each non-bot directed team:

Iago Cardelle and Lev Sasson led Duluth to a dominating performance, each scoring 27 points in 29, 28 minutes respectively,l pulling down a combined 15 rebounds, 9 assists, and 6 steals (one more than the Trumps in both assists and steals). Iago continues his dominant campaign for league MVP and most certainly should be an all star starter for the Great 8.

DVine Lions' Erik Scuppa took back his league leading per game scoring lead by scoring 45 points on 16-29 shooting, including 9 three pointers!

I Volt's dominant win came upon the shoulders of C Ante Dekovic, who surprisingly starred in their run and gun offense, scoring 27 points to go along with his 21 rebounds to seal his double double for the night.

Bilodeau's first foray into the league fight night featured a base offense and a loss to maybe the best bot led team in the league. Looks like they still have some things to figure out, but back up C Randall Chu scored as many points in 17 minutes as starting SG Shad Moore did in 32, scoring 11 points on 5-8 shooting from the field. While it's early in Celtics managerial career, some of Bilodeau's fans were heard wondering aloud why Chu was backing up Louis Sands, who looks to have all star potential, but at 24, appears to have not been dedicated enough in the gym to train up his skills much past an end of the bench, if not free agent, player.

Starting Power Forward Oliver Darmanovic only missed four shots enroute to 21 points, 9 rebounds, and 5 assists for FR-S in a route.

YGT again lost another close one - with point guard Franklin Moore scoring 20 points on 50% shooting, including 3 three pointers.

And finally, Polish Shooting Guard Budzislaw Lyzwinski scored 36 points, only missing two shots on the night in 30 minutes, including 8 of 9 from three to lead the Lion Rebels to their victory.

Still moving the recaps even if I'm not replying to every one ;)

I really wish BB would rebalance / condense divisions to help eliminate bot teams :/

Yeah - it's nice to have a "walk over" every once in a while, but the majority of the games in a season is just way too much. And then even with the mid season newbies, they're still too fresh to be competitive so it's kinda the same thing. Oh well!

Been in this league for a bit now and it has been really top heavy the entire time. I have been trying to get into the division three but made my first finals last season.

Dude - I feel ya. That was my experience too. Finally made it up to III and had a decent run and then crashed. So weird. Good luck to you!