With the first round of the playoffs done, let's recap the games and how they went down. The first game I'm covering...is Raleigh vs Jersey. Jersey came out fairly strong in the first quarter but found itself down 7...from there, it didn't get much better. By the end of the game, free throws, field goal percentage, assist to turnover ratio and rebound margin all contributed to a blowout win for Raleigh. Great season to Jersey though; I cannot stress enough how difficult it is to even make the playoffs in your inaugural season! Next up we have Gators vs Hooch. Hooch and I had a short BB Mail convo and said that in addition to what he'd done when he beat me this past week, he had another trick up his sleeve. I had an idea of what I thought that trick was and decided to start Jon Basham over Gomez at the point based on my confidence in that idea due to his ability to pass the ball. Indeed, I was right, but I was not expecting to see a playoff win of this magnitude. Field goal percentage and the rebounding margin seem to make the difference in a game that I was very surprised to see be decided by such a wide margin. Up next we have a game between the late season surging team aka the Big Beavers and the constant in the Big 8, BPE. The game was a very close game but in the end, BPE was just too good on defense for the Big Beavers to overcome and actually pull the upset. The Big Beavers may be onto something, though. I'm quite excited to see how next season goes for them because promise like this at the end of a season has its way of carrying itself over into a really good full season in the next one for teams like Big Beavers or myself back when I was starting. Finally, we have the closest game of the 4, Hard2Guard and Duck City. Maybe if Pai doesn't get hurt, maybe that makes a difference; either way, his replacement played valiantly, but it wasn't enough as Hard2Guard once again out-team played an opponent to victory. The main thing that jumps out to me, though, is that despite his major 30 point contribution, Tilge may have also hurt their upset bid some by shooting 16 3's and not getting to the foul line once. Maybe if he passes up three to six of those 3's he missed, as in the ones that were probably closely contested, and maybe made it a priority to get five to eight free throws, maybe they pull it off...but that's neither here nor there. Rebounds and assist to turnover ratio also played a big factor in Hard2Guard's win. With that all said, we have "chalk" playing out for the semi-finals, and I'm excited to see what happens!