The Championship

Championship time. No bigger moment. This is what we play for. Shoot First Moran and Wise Shots. The two favorites coming into the playoffs finally met up to compete for it all. The first thing we noticed was that Dainis Klavins was not at the game. A huge obstacle for Wise Shots to overcome with Klavins shooting being SUCH a huge part of their offensive strategy. Could they overcome missing Klavins?

Shoot First Moran came out firing with two missed threes, one each from Luke Alotbelli and Scott Moran. Jamil Ball was not to be outdone and missed a three of his own. Eek. SFM quickly righted the ship with a Moran drive to the hoop and an Altobelli three off a feed from Ball. 5-0 SFM. Drew Debari got on the board with a scoop drive. Another bucker from Debari and a bucket from Shawn Wise gave Wise Shots an early 6-5 lead. They pushed it out to 8-5 off a beautiful Tyrone Mullings feed to Wise. After another Altobelli three we were knotted up at 8-8. But, we were already about half way through the first half. Lots of shot were rimming out on both sides. There weren’t a ton of offensive rebounds. Just a lot of tough contested shots missing and rebounds being pushed the other way for a tough contested shot. At one point Mullings looked like he had an easy layup but he passed it out Ben Simmons style and Wise Shots missed the jumper. Debari yelled at Mullings to go up strong next time. So, Mullings did on his next possession, got fouled and made both free throws. After a Joe Epperson putback, Mullings scored on another tough drive. Clearly taking Debari’s message to heart. Mullings added a block to his stat sheet when Charles Bansoro tried to drive to the hoop. Making up for the near block he had earlier in the half on an Altobelli drive. For SFM, Moran couldn’t make a three so he took the initiative to drive to the hoop, tying the game up at 12. An Andrew Yuen feed to Wise countered by an Epperson drive knotted the game up at 14 with about 2 minutes left in the half. Back on defense, Altobelli had an aggresive steal that he took coast to coast for 2 and then hit a three the next time SFM had the ball. After a nifty euro step from Epperson it was 21-14. A nice little 9-0 run by SFM. They looked like they were going to have all the momentum but Debari drove the lane, drew the defense and kicked the ball out to an open Corey Fein who hit a three at the halftime buzzzer. 21-17 SFM at half. 

Both teams had a lot to talk about at halftime. Debari really couldn’t make a shot, some weren’t even close. Wise Shots would need Mullings to be more aggressive as he was their best chance to generate offense. For SFM what was up with their namesake Scott Moran? 0-6 in the first half shooting from three. 

We started the second half with Ball finding a cutting Joe Martin who was fouled and made one of two free throws. Then a funny exchange where Martin stole the ball but that ball was immediately stolen by Joe Maalouf for Wise Shots. Back to back Joe steals! Back to back to back if you count the 2020 election! (I kid, I kid, relax). The most important moment early in the second half was Debari picking up his third foul. With only six guys tonight Debari needed to be on the court. Moran, clearly aware his shot was off, attacked the basket again and scored to give SFM a 24-17 lead. Shawn Wise countered with a nifty little post move to cut the lead to 24-19. Joe Martin scored to push the lead out to 26-19 but then Wise Shots went on a 9-0 run of their own. Wise scored, which was followed by Andrew Yuen scoring which was followed by Maalouf hitting 3, followed by a Debari drive. Desperate to stop the bleeding, Moran made a hard move to the basket and went up for a layup, which he missed, but he landed awkwardly and immediately had to come out of the came. Moran wasn’t play particularly well but if he would be unable to return, that’s a HUGE blow for SFM. Charles Bansoro finally stopped the bleeding himself with a great feed to Epperson to tie us up at 28 with about 14 minutes left in the game. Wise got busy from the mid range with a smooth jumper to make in 30-28 and then Debari added a floater to make it 32-28. Timeout SFM. 

SFM wasn’t as sharp as they were in the first half and for some reason had gotten away from letting Altobelli go to work. Would be interesting to see how they came out of the timeout with Wise Shots having most of the momentum.

Altobelli took control coming out of the timeout with a nice feed to Chris Whitney for 2. But Maalouff hit his second three of the half to push the lead back to 5, 35-30. Epperson had a nice putback to make it 35-32. Then with about 9 minutes left, Debari picked up his fourth foul trying to take a charge. Yikes. Following the blocking call Altobeli had a nice little post move where he scored but a frustrated Debari came back with a two of his own. Altobelli was locked in now though. He hit a three on the next possession for SFM to tie things up at 37. Mullings had a drive where he scored and then a drive where he found Wise for an easy bucket. 41-37 Wise Shots. However, a Mason Gloudemans score and an Altobelli three flipped the lead to SFM for the first team since it was 26-23. Now up 42-41 the momentum was shifting to SFM’s side. Wise Shots had an inbounds under the basket they were scoring out and Jamil Ball was all over that inbounds pass stealing possession for SFM. Up one and trying to take control of the game with the ball, what should SFM do? How about another three from Altobelli? Sure, count it. 45-41. Debari missed two free throws and then Bansoro scored on a drive to the hoop, 47-41. Now there was just minutes left in the game. SFM was in complete control thanks to Altobelli’s scoring outburst. Mullings wasn’t about to go down easily has he stole the ball and cut the lead to 47-43. After a Whitney jumper Mullings hit a three. 49-46. Unfortunately the next time SFM had the ball, Debari was called for a foul. The ref may have thought it was an intentional foul since there was less than 2 minutes left but based on Debari’s reaction you can tell it wasn’t. I forget who shot the free throws but they made one of two. Wise Shots were down four with the ball but Debari was on the bench. Mullings made a move towards the basket, drew the attention of the defense and kicked it out to an open Yuen who made the three. Wise Shots immediately called timeout only down one with 15 seconds left. The inbounds found Moran who was fouled. He missed the free throw. But on the other end Wise was called for a travel. Ball back to SFM. They gave it to their main playmaker for the evening, Altobelli. He was fouled and made both free throws with 5 seconds left.

Wise Shots still had a timeout in their pocket but elected not to use it. Mulling took the inbounds, raced up court and got off a pretty clean look that rimmed out. The buzzer sounded. Game over. Your champions are Shoot First Moran. 52-49.

Wise Shots has to be disappointed. They were the one seed heading into the playoffs, won an incredibly close contest last week against Hoopa Loompas and had some good momentum here in the second half. And that was without Klavins. An incredible season where they fell just short. 

For Shoot First Moran, they really were the most complete team all season. But the win tonight really goes to Altobelli. His shooting in the second half finally broke the game open for SFM. He’s your finals MVP and gave us a great performance to close the season with. Congrats to everyone on SFM. Jamil Ball, Scott Moran, Chris Whitney, Joe Epperson, Joe Martin, Charls Bansoro, Mason Gloudemans and Luke Altobelli. Every player on this team made at least one crucial contribution in a game this season that helped this team win. Everyone played their role perfectly and you can see why that’s important on a night like tonight when a guy like Scott Moran, who’s shooting was so vital in so many of their wins, just didn’t have it. But, because of the team around him, they still got the win and the 5v5 Draft Winter 2024 title. Hell of a season guys. You deserve it.

Hope to see everyone back in a couple weeks for the spring session. I’m still nursing a rib injury so I won’t be playing but I’ll be back on the books. So please, don’t make me learn a bunch of new guys’ names. Sign up!

If not, it’s been a pleasure watching everyone this season. Thanks for all the great feedback on the writeups. As someone who’s an accountant by day, getting a chance to do some writing and just hanging out watching hoops is a much needed reprieve. 

Lastly, GO SOX!

In our second semifinal game we got the #2 Seed (Shoot First Moran) vs the #3 Seed (Country Billy Made a Couple Milly). The first thing that jumped out was CBMACM would be without Sam Davis. Something we discussed in our playoff preview as being a possibility and a huge obstacle for CBMACM to overcome if Davis was indeed out for the playoffs. 

To overcome Davis’ absence CBMACM started the game with six guys on the floor. A great strategy if no one notices, but unfortunately nothing gets by our CAC officials. A technical foul was called just as Scott Moran was sinking the opening three. Count the basket and the technical foul for too many men on the floor and just like that not only was CBMACM down Sam Davis, they were down 5-0 (Moran nailed both technical foul shots). It didn’t get better from there. Moran hit another three, Chris Whitney put back an offensive rebound and Moran hit ANOTHER three. A 13-0 run to start the game just four minutes in. Carlos Carmona tried to get CBMACM back on track with a three of his own off a feed from Dan Barbour but Luke Altobelli came right back with a three of his own. After Brad Myatt missed two free throws, Chris Whitney had a putback and then ANOTHER three from Altobelli made it 21-3, Shoot First Moran. We talked about CBMACM being a poor rebounding team due to the lack of raw size on the front line and Whitney highlighted that over and over again. He had seven offensive rebounds in the first half. So not only was Shoot First Moran absolutely stroking from deep, when they weren’t hitting, they were getting another possession. CBMACM really needed Dan Barbour to go god-mode tonight. He started too. He had a drive to the hoop for two, then a couple of free throws and then a three pointer of his own. 21-10. Maybe we’d have a game after all. 

Nope.

Shoot First Moran went on a 21-0 run at that point. What happened? Joe Epperson came in off the bench for Shoot First Moran and just supercharged his team with energy. He was grabbing every defensive rebound, pushing the pace, dishing out dimes, and made a three of his own. It was a serious energy shift that SFM needed just when they were starting to lull. The rest of the team clicked back in with him. Whitney continued to pound the offensive glass, Altobelli hit back to back threes at one point. Charles Bansoro had a nice drive for two. Moran had a nice feed to a cutting Mason Gloudemans, Jamil Ball hit a three. Everyone was chipping in with the half capped by Epperson driving and finding a wide up Whitney near the basket who scored right as the buzzer sounded. 49-13 at the half. 

If CBMACM was going to have any chance they needed to come out hot and aggressive immediately. Brian Horton had the ball ready to throw it in to start the half, and proceeded to overthrow a teammate and watch the ball sail out of bounds. Not ideal. Maybe they’ll make up the ground on defense? 

Nope.

Altobelli hit a three then Moran hit a three and not the lead was 55-13. Really no coming back at this point. We’ll walk through some highlights but the lead was never less than 41 points the rest of the way. Bansoro had two really pretty finds to a cutting Moran at different points. Altobelli had a dope three where he like half spun, stuck the ball out, his defender chased the ball, Altobelli spun back from a wide open 3 that he nailed. For CBMACM Barbour just couldn’t hit a shot. Carmona had a couple have nice drives that led to some free throws that he nailed and Brad Myatt hit two jumpers. But we were really just playing out the clock at this point. There really wasn’t anything CBMACM could do. Things get a little testy at one point when Jamil Ball got fouled shooting a three late in the game by Horton. Horton was guarding pretty aggressively and Ball took some offense when Horton claimed Ball threw his arm out to get fouled. Ball told him that’s how he shoots. I think he called it the “chicken wing”. Ball also remarked it’s a 40 point game and Horton should probably dial it back. I go both ways on that. You don’t want anyone to get hurt, but I respect playing out the clock. Anyway, Ball made all three free throws to put a bow on the evening. Final score 82-40. 

For CBMACM it’s really disappointing. There were moments this season where they looked like the best team in the league. Not having Davis was too much to overcome. But an impressive season nonetheless. Hope to see all those guys back in the spring.

For Shoot First Moran. Wow. I figured they were the deepest team in the league going into the playoffs and they proved that tonight. No only did every player score, but every player also had at least one assist and one rebound. Just a masterclass of basketball. Moran and Altobelli are real problems from deep and the rest of the guys fit in so perfectly around them. They were making the extra pass all night, cutting off ball, crashing the boards, proper spacing. I mean, they were just locked in. If they play anywhere close to this level next week, I don’t see how they lose.

HOOPA LOOMPAS NEARLY PULL OFF THE UPSET BEHIND JENCO AND BROWN SCORING BARRAGE

Our first semifinal game featured Wise Shots and Hoopa Loompas. Injuries reared their ugly head again coming into this one. Hoopa Loompas would be without Kyle Miller and Angelo Cerbone due to injuries. They’d also be without Thomas Skates (unsure the reason). Three pretty key pieces for the Loompas and they’d need other guys to step up in a major way. 

Chris Jenco started doing just that. He opened the game shooting two threes (making one). His running mate for the evening, Ben Brown, also hit an early three. For Wise Shots they got an early three from Klavins but Wise Shots overall didn’t look as sharp as usual. Debari had a nice three quarters court pass that bounced off of Shawn Wise’s hands. Wise had a great size advantage in this game prompting one of the Wise Shot’s players to tell Debari “keep feeding Shawn” to which Debari rebutted “he has to catch it”. The Loompas capitalized on this sloppiness, specifically Dylan Russell and Othniel St-Ulme. They were disrupting passing lanes, getting deflections, picking pockets. Wise Shots honestly looked a little rattled. On offense the Loompas just gave the ball to either Jenco or Brown and let them cook. The only other player to score for the Loompas in the first half was Tyler Pontes who had a nice pump fake on a corner three and drove into the basket to score. 

That score gave the Loompas a 22-15 lead with about 7 minutes left in the half. Something clicked for Wise Shots at that point and they finally started playing like we know they’re capable of. Tyrone Mullings scored off a feed from Debari, Patrick Aspell had a tough take against the hounding defense of Ben Brown for two, Mullings then took a defensive rebound coast to coast for two and Debari drove hard off a Mullings screen to hit a layup. A quick 8-0 by Wise Shots gave them a 23-22 lead. Now it was the Loompas who looked a little rattled. On the next Loompas possession, Jenco found himself trapped against the sideline after giving up his dribble. He attempted to bounce the ball hard off the defenders legs but he missed the defenders legs. The force of the throw thrusted the ball into the air where it fell right into Brown’s hands at the basket who scored. Fun way to stop a run, and we had to give Jenco the assist for that! The team’s traded baskets the rest of the half with the lead changing four times and getting tied up once at 27 following a great pass from Mullings to Andrew Yuen. There were some sloppy passes along the way to this 27 all tie and Debari yelled out “Stop being fucking cute and go up strong to the rim”. Well at least one person listened, Corey Fein. Fein made a nice impact at this point, shutting off a drive by Ben Brown to the basket that ended with a tough shot from Jenco that he missed. Then Fein grabbed an offensive rebound on the other end and put it back for a 29-27 Wise Shots lead. Jenco, a little frustrated at himself for the bad shot on the previous possession, converted an and-1 to take the lead back. He also made one of two free throws the next possession. Debari missed a 3 point heave at the buzzer and the Loompas, down three key players, went into half up 31-29. 

Dainis Klavins opened up the second half scoring with a three to give Wise Shots a 32-31 lead. He also had a nice feed to Yuen to push the lead to 34-31. Jenco didn’t want to see the lead grow any further than that and got his own offensive rebound for a putback. After the teams traded some baskets including a Ben Brown drive, an assist from Debari to Yuen and a singular Debari free throw it was 37-35 Wise Shots. For about two minutes after that the ball just couldn’t find the net. So many shots rimmed in and out. Yuen finally helped break the seal on the basket throwing a no look backwards over his head pass to Debari who finished at the rim. 39-35 Wise Shots. Wise Shots held a slight lead that got pushed as far out as 47-42 following two Mulling free throws. That’s when Jenco and Russell went on a 7-0 run for the Loompas. A three from Jenco, a two from Jenco and a steal then put back from Russell. Debari put back his own miss to tie the game at 49 with 6 minutes left. Ben Brown took a drive to the hoop to take a 51-49 lead for the Loompas. Klavins hit two free throws to tie the game at 51. Ben Brown his a HUGE three to make it 54-51 Loompas. Debari then drove to the basket to cut the lead to 54-53. Klavins got fouled on an offensive rebound and hit two free throws to give the lead back to Wise Shots 55-54. We’re around a minute to go at this point. Ben Brown drove to the hole, whistle blows. CHARGE! DEBARI TOOK THE CHARGE! Wise Shots couldn’t add to their lead. And with about 30 seconds left, the Loompas had the ball. Othniel St-Ulme lined up a three and missed it. Debari grabbed the rebound and was fouled. He nailed both free throws. Ben Brown ended up with the ball and got off a tough look over two defenders to tie that he couldn’t hit. Game over 57-54 Wise Shots.

Incredibly gutsy performance from Hoopa Loompas. Jenco and Brown really played their hearts out, as did Russel, St-Ulme and Pontes. Down three players they nearly pulled of the upset. Nothing to be ashamed of here, great season and went out in style.

For Wise Shots, they show they can win in close games again. Debari took over when it mattered. They’ll have their hands full next week in the championship against Shoot First Moran and will need Klavins and Mullings to find their offensive flow to have a shot. Should be a great one!

Baudet? More like BauTREY, amiright?

We closed with what on paper would be the most fun game. Neither team had anything to play for, but there would be plenty of talent on the court. Sauce Castillo and You Got Tibbs’d. Both teams that on any night could be the best team in the league or the worst. We saw some of the upside early with an early Jacob Miller bucket off a feed from Kevin Gilooly and a Gilooly bucket off a feed from Miller. Each were kind enough to let me know they had an assist. Appreciate the help. We also got to watch two bigs battle as Derek Erion and Michael Brady were trading points and boards in the post. For YGT, Emmanuel Okharedia was finding all sorts of passing lanes and, unlike in prior weeks, his teammates were finishing! For Sauce Castillo Gilooly made three first half threes and Aidan Chaney got cooking with a pair of his own. Dan Schwartz did his part for YGT with a couple steals and some nice scoring around the rim. Despite all this quality ball playing, the two biggest stories of the first off were the multiple travels called on Chaney. He vehemently disagreed with each one, pleading to our referees that he wasn’t traveling on his first step after receiving a pass. Frustrating for him, comical for the rest of us. The biggest story though was the lights out shooting from Remy Baudet. He hit his first four threes, and hit six total in the first half, the last of which gave YGT a 43-29 lead. Baudet was pulling with no hesitation. He even blessed us with a couple of mid range jumpers as well. The score at half was 49-36, YGT.

Chaney came out and immediately hit a three (without traveling!) to cut the lead to 49-39. But for the most part, YGT controlled the second half with Derek Erion really putting his stamp on the game, scoring a bunch near the basket. Some on his own but most off of feeds from Okharedia. Kunal Chawla got hot as well, hitting three threes in the half and had probably the drive off the night with a nifty little up and under finish in traffic. Dan Buckley was teh best offensive weapon for Sauce Castillo in the second half getting the to basket and hitting a couple shots outside of the paint. The closest the score got was 56-45 but that’s when Kunal hit back to back threes and stopped any momentum Sauce Castillo had. The teams playfully got through the rest of the game but the outcome was never really in doubt. YGT had an offensive explosion that was likely inside of them all season but didn’t come out until the last game and walked away with a 83-61 win.

Both of these teams have to feel like this season could have been so much more. For YGT they had a handful of games that game down to the last minute and they couldn’t pull them out. They also never had their full 8 at any game and played most of their games with 6 or less guys. It’s a shame we won’t see the individual skills of Okharedia, Baudet and Andrew Cooper in the playoffs. But when you can’t finish close games, that’s what happens.

For Sauce Castillo they also had a couple close games. I also think they should have played at a fast pace. When you have a big like Michael Brady you should just be up and down and up and down. This should have been the mid 2000s Phoenix Suns with Jacob Miller playing the Steve Nash role. Instead they would sometimes get bogged down. They also didn’t have a good counter if the three ball wasn’t falling. I don’t know if Castillo had the perimeter defense to make a run in the playoffs but it would have been fun to watch. 

Would love to see players from both of these teams come back in the spring. There’s a lot of playoff level talent on both of these rosters.

https://cacbasketball.playbookapi.com/programs/register/team/

Carmona and Barbour Lock in the 3 Seed for Country Billy Made A Couple Milly

Our middle game for the night was the only game featuring two teams bound for the playoffs with Country Billy Made a Couple Milly vs Hoompa Loompas. The first thing that jumped out was Hoompa Loompas was down two of their most impactful players, Kyle Miller and Angelo Cerbone. Both of these guys were injured last week and we’ll speak more on their availability later. CBMACM was also down one of their best players, Sam Davis, who suffered an ankle injury two weeks ago. 

But the game started out like most CBMACM games have started recently, with Dan Barbour aggressively looking for his offense. We know that’s coming, no surprise there. The exciting development for CBMACM in the absence of Davis is the emergence of Carlos Carmona has a legitimate offensive threat. Carmona was apparently hooping a good bit up until COVID hit but spent the last couple years primarily playing soccer as he waited for the world to go back to normal. So he came into this season in good cardio shape, but his hoops skills weren’t slightly dulled. He’s been the biggest breakout the last couple weeks as his handles and his shot look have been elite lately. With he and Barbour scoring, CBMACM jumped out to an early 22-12 lead. On the Loompas side it was mostly Chris Jenco carrying the offensive load both from deep and attacking the basket. The Loompas bigger issue was on defense where for some reason they weren’t calling out screens causing Ben Brown to get blindsided a couple times. Brown finally got a drive to go on the offensive end and a couple free throws and an and-1 from Jenco got the lead down to 24-19. Othniel St-Ulme was making an impact for the Loompas as well wreaking havoc on defense and had a nice behind the back pass to Dylan Russell who hit a three. With about 5 minutes left in the half the Loompas were only down 26-22. That’s when Barbour took over. He hit a three, had a nice take, found Isaac Julien under the basket for an easy two. Carmona got involved as well feeding Brad Myatt for two and getting some of his own buckets. All of a sudden the lead was 40-23. Jenco cut it to 40-26 with a three with 2 seconds left but that late run really dampened the Loompas chances. 

Ben Brown tried to get the Loompas back in with his defense. He was absolutely hounding Barbour all over the court and had a big block on one of Carmona’s drives. This seemed to help pull up the energy across the entire Loompas roster. Dylan Russell specifically started hammering the offensive glass getting a couple of nice put backs. CBMACM started to get a little flustered that they couldn’t keep him off the glass and had watched their massive lead get cut down to 47-39 after a Tyler Pontes jumper. Want to guess what happened next? Yes, Dan Barbour. A solo 6-0 run by Barbour pushed the lead back out to 53-39 (a putback, two free throws and a midrange jumper). The Loompas couldn’t really get much closer after that and the final score was 65-49.

Looking ahead to the playoffs CBMACM will have the best play on the floor, no matter who they play, in Barbour. Carmona is also showing himself to be one of the better two way guards in the league. They have some size in Myatt and Julien with solid role players in Chao Quan and Orlinsky. One wild card for them will be the shooting of Brian Horton. When he’s hot, it opens things up for Barbour and Carmona. When he’s cold, those are empty possession. But the biggest wildcard is Sam Davis. Davis is an absolute force out there and his defensive intensity and his offensive skill will be missed if he’s not healthy for the playoffs. No Davis likely caps the ceiling of what CBMACM can do.

For the Loompas they were without three of their best players tonight. Miller, Cerbone and Thomas Skates. Miller and Cerbone were out for injury reasons and if they aren’t back the Loompas ceiling might also be capped. Jenco and Brown can carry the team in spurts and we’ve seen what Russell and St-Ulme can do with their raw effort. But the offensive ceiling drops tremendously without Miller and Cerbone. Here’s to hoping those guys are healthy because the Loompas need them if they're goal is to win the ship.