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.

Hoompas Loompas Lose the Game and Two Players

We closed the night we Sauce Castillo vs the Hoompa Loompas. Sauce Castillo would be playing without Jacob Miller and Hoompa Loompas would be playing without Ben Brown. Sauce Castillo jumped out to an early 5-2 lead via a banked 3 pointer from Aidan Chaney. This prompted Chris Jenco (Hoompa Loompas) to claim that was a lucky shot. More on that later. Michael Brady was putting in work early as well nailing a couple push shots outside the paint and helping Sauce Castillo extend the lead out 11-5. Chaney continued to shoot but on his next miss Jenco assured him “that will not go in, I watched you shoot last game”. Most of the first half was the Michael Brady show. He was aggressive looking for his shot near the basket scoring 14 points in the first half. On the Loompas side 100% of the scoring came between Jenco, Kyle Miller and Angelo Cerbone. Cerbone in particular looked really strong making moves in the post and some jumpers just inside the arc. A couple highlights were a monster block from Jenco, a slick offensive tip in from Miller and some nice big to big feeds from Michael Brady to Dan Buckley. The teams were tied up at 24 with 3 minutes left in the half. Sauce Castillo close on an 8-0 run capped by a three pointer from Aidan Chaney with just seconds left. “I guess I’m getting lucky” -Chaney.

Chaney opened the second half with another “lucky 3” and Castillo was up 35-26. Miller tried to shoot the Loompas back into the game but was really struggling to find his shot. Castillo was able to keep the lead via some nice drives by Taha Jennings and Kevin Gilooly. Another three pointer from Chaney pushed the lead out to 46-33. “I am crazy lucky”. A scary moment happened late in the second half when Cerbone landed hard on his leg and immediately grabbed his knee and made his way to sideline. Done for the night. The Loompas started to chip away at the lead when Kyle Miller hurt his ankle going for a block. He also immediately went to the sideline, done for the night. There was momentary discussion about calling the game given there was only about 4 minutes left and the Loompas were down. But, we continued on and a 7-0 run from Chris Jenco got the score as close as 56-48. But they never got closer than that. A 59-48 win for Sauce Castillo gave them their second win on the night.

For Sauce Castillo this is the team they should have been all season. Fast paced, jacking up threes and letting Michael Brady initiate a bunch of the offense. Likely too little too late for their playoff chances but nice to see this team is there. For Hoompas Loompas you could see they missed Ben Brown even before the injuries but all that matters now for them is getting healthy. If Miller AND Cerbone miss the playoffs, that makes any sort of run look basically impossible.

Hoompa Loompas Barely Skate(s) By

Week 8 Already!?!??! Here we go! A rematch from Week 1 between the Hoompas Loompas and You Got Tibbs’d. 

You Got Tibbs’d jumped out to an unconventional 2 point lead with the Loompas having two players without a proper jersey a lead quickly erased when Dylan Russell found Angelo Cerbone near the basket for an easy two. The ease of which was facilitated by YGT starting the game a man down and left scrambling playing 4 on 5 defense. Not only was YGT is disarray playing a man down but there was a lack of energy, specifically from Remy Baudet. This lack of energy forced Emmanuel Okharedia to call an early timeout. This early timeout also gave Dan Schwartz (who’d just arrived) a chance to lace up to give YGT a full 5. Now at full strength with an increased level of energy we could really play ball. Thomas Skates got his big night going early, draining a three from the elbow off a feed from Ben Brown (Brown’s passing was a huge factor tonight). But it was YGT who had the early 16-11 lead following a tough fadeaway in the paint by Okharedia over Brown. But the Loompas stormed back, eventually knotting things up after a Chris Jneco three pointer that left YGT arguing about why guys are open. It was nice to see Jenco engaged as the Loompas are at their best when they get these mini bursts of Jenco being the best player on the court, which didn’t happen last week. The big theme of the first half though was players complaining about everything. Either to each other for missed defensive assignments or not passing to an open man but most often at the refs. Seemingly every call was wrong or every non-call was a blatant foul. At one point point the ref asked Baudet “Do you want to go to the line every time you get the ball?” to which Baudet simply responded under his breath “...if there’s a foul”. Honestly, the first half was sloppy between the complaining, people throwing the ball away. And in a half like that I couldn’t have scripted a better ending. Tie at 26 with the clock winding down YGT cleared space for Andrew Cooper to get the last shot. Meanwhile on the Loompas bench, Ben Brown started to do a fake countdown to encourage a rushed shot. Cooper proceeded to score a bucket right as the ref gave Ben Brown a tech for the fake countdown. Cooper then sank both the foul shots and YGT closed the half up 30-26. You don’t see many four point plays like that.

Onto the second half we went! And boy did it feel different right away. The Loompas opened the half on an 11-0 run. A Cerbone bucket right at the basket followed by an and-1 from Skates. Skates then drove to the basket and got another layup that was followed by back to back buckets from Cerbone. On defense Skates and Othniel St-Ulme were hounding the YGT ball handlers and disrupting every idea they had. It wasn’t until Kunal Chawla hit two free throws following an offensive rebound that YGT got on the board. YGT still couldn’t stop Skates though as he scored on another drive on the next possession. Cooper had a nice find to Schwartz who score to cut the lead to 39-34 but Ben Brown scored his only field goal of the second half to push the lead back out to 41-34. Then YGT turned up the defensive intensity, they forced a steal that led to a Baudet and-1 and then forced a turnover that led to an Okharedia bucket. YGT was now within two, 41-39. But a Brown steal that led to an easy layup for Skates followed by a Jenco three pushed the lead back out to 46-39. YGT just couldn’t quite get the lead back. Cooper did his best hitting a three to cut the lead to 46-42 but Jenco hit ANOTHER three to make it 49-42. Another example of a Jenco burst being huge for the Loompas. The lead continued to grow after a couple of Ben Brown free throws but Baudet hit a three to give YGT life. But back to back buckets from Jenco (one off a nice find from Brown) continue his burst gave the Loompas a 10 point lead late in the second half. YGT clawed and scratched their way back and actually got within 56-53 and about 6 seconds left when they fouled Cerbone who went to the line for a one and one. With a timeout in their pocket YGT just needed Cerbone to miss the front end of the one and one and secure the rebound to give themselves a shot. Cerbone obliged with the first part, MISSING the front end of the one and one. However, Skates secured the offensive rebound and the Loompas dribbled out the clock! A fitting end on a night where Skates seemed like he was everywhere.

With the victory the Loompas secured a playoff spot and ended YGT’s chances of one. Doubly meaningful for the Loompas to do it on a night when they didn’t have Kyle Miller. They find themselves as the #1 seed after this win. For YGT’s another close loss where they just couldn’t quite make a shot or get a stop when needed. YGT finds themselves at 2-5 when they could easily be 5-2 considering the three point loss tonight in the Skates game, the four point loss last week in the Dan Barbour game, and one point loss three weeks ago in the Ben Jerome game. The Loompas get Sauce Castillo next week and YGT gets Shoot First Moran.

A reminder that sign-ups for the Spring sessions are live. Check out here for sign-up options.

Miller's Second Half Explosion Not Enough for the Loompas

A couple of early Mason Gloudemans jumpers got us off and running in this matchup between Hoompa Loompas and Shoot First Moran. Arguably the two best teams in the league. Although early on it didn’t feel that way. There were a lot of travels and turnovers. The score was only 18-8, Shoot First Moran, with 7 minutes left in the half. The only person doing any significant scoring was Scott Moran who had three first half 3s. Ben Brown did his best to close the 18-8 gap. He hit one of two free throws to cut the lead to 18-9, then converted an and-1 opportunity and then had another take the basket to make it 18-14. In fact, it was until the 2 minute mark that any other Loompa scored (Chris Jenco on a drive to the basket. Thomas Skates eventually scored as well to give the Loompas three different first half scorers but Shoot First Moran had six and carried a 26-20 lead into halftime. 

Kyle Miller finally got going as he hit a 3 immediately to start the second half. He followed that up with another 3 and a drive going on a 8-2 run by himself to tie the game at 28. Miller had a potential and-1 opportunity early as well but missed the FT. Shoot First Moran had seen enough and quickly pushed the lead back out behind shooting from Luka Altobelli including one immediately following a free throw violation on Ben Brown for holding the ball too long when it was his time to shoot a free throw. A Jamil Bell three pushed the lead out to 44-34 for SFM and it seemed like SFM had done enough to keep the Loompas at bay. Kyle Miller had other plans and starting going scorched earth from deep. Eventually getting the lead down to 47-46 after his fifth made 3 of the half. Jamil Bell then hit two free throws to push the lead out to 49-46. Bell then had a GREAT pass to Chris Whitney for an easy bucket and the lead was now 51-46 but Kyle Miller his his SIXTH three of the half and got the lead down to 51-49. Still down two on their next possession, Ben Brown (who had been held scoreless in the second half til this point) got fouled shooting at the rim. He made one of two free throws to pull within one. But SFM calmly made their free throws (Moran and Altobelli) and the Loompas couldn’t hit anymore shots. SFM walked away with a well earned 56-50 victory.

This victory vaults SFM into first place and they don’t look like they’re letting go. THe shooting of Moran and Alotbelli was on full display tonight. Those guys that create runs and stop runs all by themselves. For the Loompas They missed the rebounding of Angelo Cerbone and they normally get a 3-4 minute stretch in which Chris Jenco makes a huge impact on the game on both ends. That didn’t happen tonight and they really could have used it. They also didn’t force many turnovers. Normally a bunch of guys are getting multiple steals, specifically Thomas Skates and Othniel St-Ulme. But SFM took care of the ball and were rewarded with a W.