BuzzerBeater Forums

Recap time. I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on the Big 8 championship. Here's what happened in a nutshell: BPE showed up while on the other side Bayramov showed up with a bunch of guys looking like he'd gotten them from the local YMCA. I think the Gators are never gonna play BPE man to man again and will stick to inside box and one. Now let's get to the game we really wanted to see recapped. The Great 8 championship game. And it lived up to the hype and then some. Neither team had a huge statistical advantage in any one area; Hard2Guard played their usual team ball, while Bouquillon had himself a legendary performance. As I usually do in games like this, I re-watch the last 2 minutes to see who came up huge. Despite a night where he struggled shooting, make no mistake about it; Jandula absolutely was clutch with both of his offensive rebounds coming in the last 2 minutes of the game. Another key moment was when H2G's starting small forward, whose name I won't attempt to spell, fouled out. What made Bouquillon's night special in addition to 53 points was him seeming to make all his clutch shots with the exception of one or two which Jandula had covered. The final dagger came when Bouquillon, with the game tied, rose up to hit a go-ahead 3 that turned out to be the game-winner with 4 seconds left. Who knows how OT would've gone, but that was quite a send-off for what I cannot stress enough was a legendary, legendary performance. I just hope H2G can somehow be promoted; the team as is clearly is good enough to compete at the III league level.

Last edited by Rob Da Man at 07/10/2018 14:46:50

It's time for the finals series! First, let's look at the positional breakdown; overall I give a fairly large advantage to the Raleigh Capitols (23-1) in the 1-3 spots while the BPE Bombers (22-2) have a small advantage in the post. That being said, let's look at their matchups and these teams only met once; at the time, they were the last two standing unbeaten teams, but Raleigh won by nearly 30 points. While I do think BPE has improved since then, I can't help but think that Raleigh is going to sweep this series and win both games by at least 15, and the first game at home, depending on how the first and second quarters go, may end up getting ugly is BPE can't keep up. Raleigh's small forward literally just won the last game basically by himself and unless Baldriz or one of BPE's guards goes on a scoring rampage a la Cousido against most teams, I don't see anyone on their team who can keep up; I also don't see them shutting down Jandula scoring wise like Hard2Guard (22-2) was able to do in the conference championship game.

Here's my recap of game one of the finals! Despite similar numbers in rebounding, assist to turnover ratio, and FG%, the score ended up not being very close; this can likely be attributed to 3's (1-8 vs 6-18) and free throws(12-18 vs 30-35). Baldriz was also held in check on the boards, though did chip in 5 assists with only 1 turnover and 21 points. Bouquillon, meanwhile, has continued to be the "MVP of the playoffs" so far as he went off again, this time going for 37 points, including 5 of their made 3-pointers and going a perfect 6-6 from the free throw line. Looking ahead to the next game, though, if BPE can hit some more 3's, foul a little less while maintaining their solid defense, and get to the free throw line a little more, probably through Baldriz, then they may have a chance to set up a winner take all game 3. In this game, BPE did a good job in the 1st and 3rd quarters of playing Raleigh close, they just weren't able to maintain that going into the half or as the 4th quarter was played. Home court can really make a difference, though.

Okay, so I'll recap these two games one at a time, starting with game two of the finals series...Raleigh fought back after a strong first quarter from BPE, but they seemed to find another gear in the fourth quarter as they force a game 3. BPE was in total control of the boards in addition to taking and making more free throws and having a more efficient night from the field. The one thing to take away from game two was just how much the guards seem to have taken control of the offense; usually, BPE wouldn't win if Baldriz was their fifth-leading scorer, but between BPE's guards, they were more than fine. WHat Baldriz and Oakley at power forward and center did, however, was facilitate the offense, combining for 11 assists and only 3 turnovers. Boquillion played great again, but it just wasn't enough...even though at this date we know what happened already, there was definitely some intrigue going into game 3, but I'll cover that in a few minutes.

Going into game 3, the way BPE had played the game before left this game as possibly a bit of a toss-up. The edge would probably go to the home team, but when a team catches fire, you never know. After the first quarter, though, things didn't look so great for BPE. In the next two quarters, however, they played lights out and cut the lead to 1 going into the fourth quarter. From there, however, I have to guess Bouquillon went into Kevin Durant/LeBron James mode as he has all throughout these playoffs and your season 42 League IV.64 champions are the Raleigh Capitols. It didn't come without some challenges at the end, but they move back up behind the guy who seems to be the undisputed playoff MVP, who hit big shot after big shot down the stretch in the semis. The one thing that stood out in this game for Raleigh was field goal efficiency, as they shot well over 50 percent from the field while BPE was just under. Bouquillion in particular shot 56% in scoring 47 points to close the series out; he's a real assassin on offense. Great season everyone and good luck next season!