Congratulations to our Summer 2023 statistical leaders.
The Rebounding Champion is Rene Gallegos of 4PF.
The Free-Throw Champion is Splash Pad's Daniel Conorque.
The Scoring title goes to Danny Gonzales of Air Jesus.
And, to the consternation of just about everybody who has heard the news, the Three-Point title goes to Damu Musgrove of Looney Goons. (Haters are gonna' hate.)
The Fall 2023 season of the Tucson Basketball League is underway and, as usual, there are a couple hiccups. I suppose that they are inevitable, but they're still not fun. Most involved new teams. We don't know in what division a new team belongs until they play a game or two and that often leads to lopsided losses. As I have always said, the best game in this (or any other) league is the one-point that is decided at the buzzer. The winners are ecstatic while the other team feels like, "Man, we were right there! We'll get 'em next time."
The other thing is the new team that texts me and emails me and begs to be a part of the League. They're all fired up, can't wait to get started, when's our first game?! And then they don't show up. Sometime AFTER game time, I get the text, "Aw man, I'm sorry. Four of my guys bailed on me at the last minute. We won't have a team." I guess that text is better that the team that doesn't show and then I hear nothing from anybody. Either way, it sucks. That only happened once, and I kinda' understand, but it doesn't make it any better for the team that did show up or for the League. But, we'll move on.
The Vets and the Basketball Junkies closed out the Summer 2023 season with the final Divisional Championship game. The Vets raced out to an early lead and held a seven-point lead that shrank to one at halftime. Midway through the second half, Chaz Mack took the game over for the Junkies, hitting three straight threes and then throwing down a monster two-handed dunk. His 11-point burst put the Junkies in front, after which they cruised to a 74-60 win.
We've got a new team called Bisbee. This week, they'll be playing Los Bulldogs, a team from Douglas. The rivalry between those two mining towns dates back more than 100 years and gets pretty intense at time. (I once wrote an article in Sports Illustrated about the Bisbee-Douglas football madness.) This will be fun.