For many, many years, The Hawgs, led by the ageless (and peerless) Donte Williams, dominated the upper echelon of the Tucson Basketball League. You could have added them to that Charles Barkley line of things that you can count on. You're gonna' die someday, The Hawgs were going to win the A League championship, and Popeyes was going to get your order wrong. A few seasons back, The Hawgs were supplanted The Basketball Junkies, a fearsome mix of height, lights-out shooting, precision passing, and shutdown defense.
The Junkies have ruled the roost for several seasons, often going unbeaten in the regular season and then turning up the heat for their playoff run. It looked like it would be more of the same for the Winter 2025 season. The Junkies lost a tight game early in the year to JAK, but then rolled after that. They looked to get past Splash Pad and get another shot at JAK in the finals. Oddly, they got off to a lousy start against Splash Pad, only scoring 19 points and trailing by double figures in the first half. The Junkies got things together in the second half and stormed back to tie the game and send it into overtime. Late in the second overtime, Splash Pad grabbed a rebound and worked for the last shot.
The ball was in the hands of Dom Banks, who was a key member of those killer Amphi teams from back in the early 2010s. An absolutely ridiculous athlete, Dom appears to have negative body fat and is rumored to have smiled once (although, like some babies, maybe he just had gas). Whatever the case, he went off a screen at the top of the lane and calmly drilled a dagger three-pointer to put Splash Pad in the championship game. They would face a JAK team that had gotten past The Hawgs. Baseball legend Yogi Berra is credited with uttering the ultimate redundancy "it was deja vu all over again." And so it came to pass that Dom drilled a last-second shot for the second straight week, this one giving Splash Pad a 60-59 win over JAK and the A League championship.
With the win, Splash Pad joins the other Winter '25 Division champions, including Brandi, Ham, Rainbow Drillers, Good Guys, Just a Game, Heat Check, Johnny Utah, Mansfield Ballers, Certified TBD, Flashback, Wolves, Vatos Locos, [Enter Team Name Here], Los Suns, and Swoosh.
Yes, that's a lot of champions, but we had a lot of teams. We'll probably have even more this summer. There are no games on Mother's Day. We'll have a bunch of games on May 18th and then on May 25, EVERY TEAM IN THE LEAGUE will be scheduled to play. It will be great.