BuzzerBeater Forums

[...]
As mentioned before, I'd consider it more optimal to have an equal number of teams instead of odd number of teams and currently we have 17 teams for Season 4 (as Alanurmon Rikkaat will join us for Season 4), if Suuret Muinaiset and Hårdboll will decide to keep on playing on HGL Season 4. This way also every team would play on every Round...

I quoted myself above, as content of this post is going to be related to that.

Unfortunately, Suuret Muinaiset (manager cthulhu) has decided to leave HGL after this season. For me personally, of course losing Finnish team from our HGL team roster is grim news, but it's understandable and it's life, and I thank cthulhu for all these seasons in HGL, and warmly wish you welcome to HGL in the future!
(And let's not forget addition of another Finnish team, Alanurmon Rikkaat, to our HGL team roster on Season 4)!

So as HGL Season 4 is concerned, it seems more likely day by day that we'll be running with 16 team roster on Season 4 as well.

This would mean that we could utilize/use the same schedule than what we have been using during first 3 seasons.

We could, however, do some small changes to schedule if that's what managers would want(?)

By changes I refer to changing match blocks to different places. For a single team this would mean the same as shuffling the schedule, so you'd just meet different teams at different stages of the season.

As for positives with the current setup (using the exact same schedule than during first 3 seasons) there's the obvious positive side that you can easily check out previous season's schedules, and see how you've fared up against the same opponent when you played them last time (and that's especially true for me as I can't see anyone's games in their regular team schedule).

Positive side of changing match blocks to different rounds would include changing the "difficulty" of beginning, mid and end of season schedules, so difficulty of season wouldn't be repeated as such from season to season.
(However, team strengths do change quite a lot from season to season, so perhaps apart from VPO and HAD who haven't been beaten by anyone else but each other, mid-level teams may be able to give very strong teams a good run for their money in one or two seasons for now if not on this season, so this lessens the negative effect of repeating the schedule from season to season).

@all HGL managers:
What do you guys think, should we on Season 4
A) use the same schedule (matches on exactly same order) than on previous HGL Seasons, or
B) change places of match blocks (for example, Round 1 matches could be played during Round 4, etc.), which would shuffle the schedule? (Same matches would take place during the same game days, but for a single team that would feel like the whole schedule has been changed. For example for Round 15 WAG-LGM and ED-TRO etc. are nowadays scheduled, and all current Round 15 matches would still be played during the same match day, but these matches would be moved to some other Round instead of Round 15).

Both of these options would prevent us from having to redo the whole schedule (which by hand/by utilizing AI is either somewhat risky and/or arduous process, as manual check is having to be made to ensure validity/correctness of the schedule), so feel free to tell us your opinion about your preference ((option A) or B)).

Last edited by Wagner at 11/27/2025 7:28:22 AM

League tables have been updated again.

This might well have been one of the most interesting Regular Season rounds of the whole HGL history.

2 matches went into overtime (and one to the double overtime!), and 5 of 8 matches were close calls.
(5 out of 6 matches if we don't count matches of VPO and HAD, who in most cases, are expected to win and in some cases, win big).

- VIV-WAG: unfortunately for me, VIV took a clear win in this important match which would've either equalized our W-L records, but now VIV is 2 wins ahead. It wasn´t even a close call... both teams were playing a slow offense, but still 202 points were scored, so perhaps it wasn't the greatest celebration of defense. (Part of the high scoring is explained though when we take a look at FT%, which were 96 and 91%, respectively).

- KKS-HB: in this very important match in terms of fighting for the 4 best positions. KKS trailed by 4 12 minutes to play, but won by 3 in this inside offense-orientated match.

-ED-VMO: another tight match, in where ED led by 1 before 4th and won by 7 eventually due to good 4th quarter. WMO had 9 more second chance attempts, but 2 of their opening lineup players were fouled out after 28 and 36 minutes of play - did this turn the scale to favor ED?

- LGM-RAJ: double overtime, do I need to say more? RAJ´s inside offense rating was 13 and FG% 51,6% (LGM 42,6%, but they were better behind the 3 point arc and had 11 more second chance attempts than RAJ). No fouled out players in this 58 minute thriller...

- TRO-FRE: another overtime battle of Round 12, and this one was outside offense-orientated one. Should FRE had won this, they both would've gone to 1 win and 11 losses, but now TRO took 2 win edge over FRE. TRO had 12 more second chance attempts to score (by snatching no less than 21 offensive rebounds). While FRE had a clear edge on blocks (10-2), they also turned the ball over 5 more times than TRO and left lots of point on the free throw line (20 of 31 shooting, which means less than 65%).

- EOS-D: LennuK. already wrote a match report on this, but once again one more proper thriller for Round 12, which kept Playoff dreams alive for D (however, they do have a challenging schedule for the last 3 rounds). D won the 4th quarter by 8, and were able to get a W despite of leaving possibly HGL record breaking (?) amount of points to the free throw line (only 19 of 34 shooting, at less than 56% accuracy). In that regard, EOS shot FT´s at 68% leaving 7 points to the line, so their hands were slightly shaky as well from the charity stripe yesterday. I wasn't checking the match replay so I don't know how big of an impact it had that 2 EOS opening lineup players were fouled out, after 38 and 45 minutes, but usually that does have an impact of some sort.
For EOS, loss means they're still tied with SUM in a fight for last (12th) place in Playoffs, but have an edge over SUM currently due to Regular Season win on Season 3. It's going to be very interesting fight, as I'm sure SUM also wants to reach Playoffs during their last HGL season. (Last for now, as nobody still knows if they might return later - I definitely hope they do)!



Last edited by Wagner at 11/29/2025 6:34:26 AM