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.

Barbour Drops 40 But CBMACM Drops the Game

Wise Shots faced Country Billy Made a Couple Milly in a game with significant playoff seeding implications. Winner could have control of the one seed. Right off the opening tip Dan Barbour pulled up for three (he missed but this would set the tone for his aggression the rest of the game). Sloppy start to the game on both sides. Which we’ve seen three weeks in a row now in these 6 o’clock starts. The first points didn’t come until three minutes into the game via a jumper from Corey Fein. 2-0 Wise Shots. Even our referee, KD, made note of the lack of offense during a free throw sequence from Andrew Yuen. KD said politely “I’m going to need more offense gentlemen”. Yuen missed the free throw. Eventually the teams found their rhythm and Wise Shots had an early 9-2 lead following a drive by Drew Debari and a fadeaway from Yuen. Barbour had seen enough and almost single-handedly went on a 9-2 run capped off by him stealing the ball and going coast to coast by himself for a finish. All tied up at 11. Wise Shots got their legs back under them mostly through the offense of Dainis Klavins. On one possession, Brad Myatt was guarding Klavins and was sagging off of him to far. Klavins pulled up for three. Myatt said “that’s on me guys” before the ball even hit the net. You can’t give Klavins space. Another three from Klavins shortly thereafter pushed the Wise Shots lead to 23-15 and a behind the back feed from Klavins to Yuen made it 25-15. Barbour started aggressively hunting for his shot, hitting a number of threes at the end of the first half. Wise Shots was still scoring, just not at the pace that Barbour was. In fact, only three first half field goals from CBMACM were scored by someone other than Barbour (two shots from Myatt and a three from Brian Horton). This highlighted by a possession where Isaac Julien grabbed an offensive rebound, swung it to Carlos Carmona who immediately swung it to Barbour who hit a three. 33-29 Wise Shots. About a minute later with Wise Shots up 33-31, Barbour had the ball and pulled up for a three with 2 seconds left. He was fouled AND hit the three. Barbour converted the free throw and that four point play gave CBMACM a 35-33 lead going into the second half.

We opened the second half the same way we opened the first. No scoring. Yuen finally broke the scoring ice with a nice little post move and Barbour responded with a layup of his own. Brian Horton had a great play where he chased down a defensive rebound and tapped it up ahead to Barbour for an easy two. CBMACM was up 41-40 when Wise Shots flipped the switch. A three pointer from Klavins, a three pointer from Debari (off a nice feed from Yuen), a couple of two pointers from Klavins that prompted KD to say “he’s bustin you guys ass”, and a nice drive from Debari added up to a 12-0 Wise Shots run and a 52-41 Wise Shots lead. Myatt tried to swing momentum back to CBMACM with a pass through traffic that got knocked out of bound “that pass was not open at all” he said immediately. Excellent self-awareness tonight by Myatt. Barbour and Carmona went on a little scoring run together that did cut the lead down to 55-48 but an offensive rebound put back from Shawn Wise and then Debari hitting three free throws after getting fouled by Carmona on a three point attempt pushed the lead to it’s largest of the night 60-48. CBMACM tried to claw back but struggled to get the game ever within one possession. Carmona had a nice steal that turned into an and-1 for him, Barbour was still scoring as much as he could but Wise Shots kept their composure behind the smart game management from Debari, a couple of offensive rebounds from Fein and good team ball movement. CBMACM’s best chance was when they were down 65-60 and Barbour got fouled shooting a three but he only made one of three foul shots. A couple free throws both ways to close out the game and Wise Shots got a well earned 69-61 win.

The Wise Shots wins propels them to the one seed and with a bye next week they’ll likely stay there. The team looks ready for the playoffs. They didn’t even have Tyron Mullings tonight who can be the best player on the floor sometimes. Assuming the team is at full strength for the playoffs, there’s not a ton of weaknesses here. For CBMACM they got 40 points from Babour in this game but it wasn’t enough. Without Sam Davis there’s not a ton of other offensive threats. Assuming Davis is good to go for the playoffs he and Barbour are the best 1-2 punch in the league and can beat anyone. Horton is normally an additional scorer for CBMACM, especially from 3 but he just couldn’t get his shot going tonight. I’d love to see these two teams, with full rosters, play again in the playoffs.

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Barbour led CBMACM Cuts It Close But Gives Sauce Castillo a Playoff Fade

We closed the night with a matchup between Sauce Castillo and Country Billy Makes a Couple Milly. Or, at least we thought we were. Initially it was just a matchup between Taha Jennings and Brian Horton. First possession, Jennings missed a 3. Second possession, Horton made a 3. Third possession, Jennings hit two free throws. Fourth possession, Horton missed a 3. After that they decided to let everyone else play. Well, mostly just Dan Barbour who scored 9 of the next 11 CBMACM points and along with a nice drive by Brad Myatt helped CBMACM open up a 14-7 lead. Along with scoring, CBMACM was also doing a decent bit of fouling. So much so that Sauce Castillo was already in the one and one bonus with 9 minutes left in the first half. A quick 7-0 run by Sauce Castillo knotted things up at 14 (a three from Jacob Miller, and jumper from Dan Buckley and two Miller free throws). Another Horton three gave the lead back to CBMACM but two free throws from Buckley and another 3 from Miller gave Sauce Castillo their first lead of the game at 19-17. Barbour had seen enough, hitting three more threes from that point on til the end of the half, sparking a CBMACM to close the half out with a 16-7 run and carry a lead of 33-26 into the half, punctuated by a quick inbounds with four seconds left to Isaac Julien. 

Every member of CBMACM came out flat in the second half except Myatt. Through the first six minutes of the half Myatt was the ONLY CBMACM player to score. A three, a drive, and a free throw. Myatt checked out at the 14 minute mark. Hopefully someone else would be able to handle the scoring load. On the Sauce Castillo side, Miller nearly monopolized as much of their scoring. Castillo slowly chipped away at the halftime lead, tying it up at 40 after a nice drive by Miller and grabbing the lead 42-40 after a drive by Kevin Gilooly. Once again, with the momentum swinging to Sauce Castillo, Barbour went to work. He converted an and-1 to take the lead back 43-42, he then found a cutting Carlos Carmona who was fouled and made two FTs. Barbour then hit another three. 50-46 CBMACM. Jennings score for Sauce Castillo and Michael Brady converted an offensive rebound to a bucket to tie the game up at 50. Miller converted a nice drive to give the lead back to Sauce Castillo and cap a nice 6-0 run with about 2 minutes left and claim a 52-50 lead. RIVETING!!!! The pressure was on now and CBMACM could only turn to one man to make a play. Dan Barbour. Barbour made a move to the basket and attracted the attention of several Castillos. He moved the ball to Horton who nailed an open three. 53-52 CBMACM. Castillo couldn’t score on their next possession and that’s when Barbour pushed the lead out to 55-52 with a smooth little move to the hoop. Brady got Castillo back within one with a drive of his own. Time was ticking down though and Sauce Castillo was forced to foul Isaac Julien. One and one situation for Julien up one. INFINITE PRESSURE!!! Julien calmly knocked down the first. Smooth. He stepped up for the second one. Even smoother. Three point lead for CBMACM! Jennings drove to the basket and got fouled. He only converted one free throw. Myatt got the inbounds pass and was fouled immediately. INFINITE PRESSURE!!! Myatt calmly knocked down the first. Smooth. He stepped up for the second one. Even smoother. After an empty possession for Castillo they fouled Barbour. Slightly less pressure but the free throws were just as smooth. 61-55 CBMACM. Gilooly hit a meaningless three as time ran out to shrink the loss but CBMACM won a hard fought, fun game 61-58. 

CBMACM got this win without Sam Davis behind a 30+ point output from Barbour and some great shooting from Horton. A fully loaded CBMACM team is going to be a problem in the playoffs. Barbour is likely the best offensive player in the league and I wouldn’t put Davis too far behind him. They still have issues rebounding (as you can see from MIchael Brady’s rebounding numbers) but that hasn’t come back to bite them yet. They sit #2 in the standings right now and I wouldn’t be surprised if they finished #1. For Sauce Castillo this loss was their fourth in a row and eliminates them from playoff contention. At best they can finish 5-5 (if they win out) and Shoot First Moran (the 4th place team now) could finish 5-5 (if they lose out) but Shoot First Moran has the head to head tiebreaker. They’ll look back at this one and the five point loss 2 weeks ago to Shoot First Moran as the ones that got away. Sauce Castillo gets a double header next week against Breen Bang and Hoompas Loompas. CBMACM plays the Wise Shots in a potential first round preview.

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