Last week, we told all of the teams that if they wanted the weekend off to do holiday stuff--trips out of town, backyard grilling, going to see that Hugh Jackman "Sheep Detective" movie--they should just let us know and we'd give them a bye. About a dozen teams took us up on the proposition, but everybody else wanted to play. And so we had 44 games spread across four courts from nine in the morning until nine at night. It was a crazy great day in the gym. Even the Gods of Basketball shined down upon us. You figure even with giving people the aforementioned option of not playing, you would still get some teams that would forfeit at the last minute. And we did. Two teams forfeited at the last minute, but they were both scheduled to play at 4:00, so we were able to match up the two teams that did show up. They got to play and we don't have to schedule makeup games for them. Dodged that financial bullet!
The games we had were amazing. Nailbiters, buzzer beaters, and all kinds of other -ers were the specialties of the day. For example:
--Brotherhood overcame a 25-point second-half deficit to come back and win, 58-55 over Swoosh. Brotherhood trailed, 35-17, at halftime and started the second half by falling even further behind. Then they caught fire, hit six quick threes, and the comeback of the season was on.
--SAMB (a team from the Air Force Base) traded leads with Team UGLY right down to the final buzzer before emerging with a 49-48 win.
--We had a couple minor upsets early in the day, with Fleet beating JAK, 71-59, and Souly Boys outlasting Blue Coconuts, 50-44.
--Okay, this is weird: On Court 3 last week, we had two consecutive games (Mambas over Wicked and Rogue Sharks over Strikers) that both ended with identical scores of 74-55. Then, the game after that ended with a score of 70-55, followed by a game with the score of 63-55. Four straight games where the losing team scored exactly 55 points. That's very odd. And then, in the next game, Bantu Bandits beat Big Steppas, 54-53.
A couple notes: We're going to enforcing more strictly the jersey/matching shirt rule. If a team shows up looking like The Rolling Stones circa 1964 (meaning intentionally mismatched), that team will not be put back on the schedule until they get jerseys or perfectly matching shirts. We also have several teams that haven't filled out their rosters. If they don't have completed rosters by this Sunday's games, they, too, will be kept off the schedule for the following week. Come on, Guys. It's not that hard.
We have another big week of games ahead. Let's have another great week. Thanks.
