BuzzerBeater Forums

Welcome and good luck!

*looks around*

We're about to find out who's worth it and who isn't, aren't we? I have a feeling our calling card (defense and rebounding) ain't gonna cut it. On the other hand, kind of hard to find out when you're playing mostly bots, and we are relatively young...

This league is gonna kill us, isn't it? Or make us stronger...

Day 1 (Saturday 23 April 2022) : Performances by (https://www.buzzer-manager.com)

Night results
Seattle SuperSonicz 94 - Mighty Moose Rockets 115
War Birds 95 - Lion Rebels 103
Philly Dribble 109 - San Dominica Warriors 95
Linndale 82 - Rip City Revival 80
Żubr Białystok 106 - The Beer Bellys 103
Miami Cleo 84 - pintipv 101
Dallas Bomskwad 68 - Gremlins 109
Weather Society 99 - The Ashkickers 117

Best collective performance of the evening
Points : 117 : The Ashkickers
Rebounds : 59 : San Dominica Warriors, Gremlins
Assists : 24 : Mighty Moose Rockets
Steals : 9 : Gremlins
Block Shots : 9 : San Dominica Warriors

Personal best performances of the evening
Points : 36 : J. Fleurent (Mighty Moose Rockets), C. McMahon (War Birds)
Rebounds : 21 : W. Kofan (Mighty Moose Rockets)
Assists : 11 : S. Dickens (Żubr Białystok)
Steals : 3 : S. Vecchia (pintipv)
Block Shots : 4 : J. Felip (Dallas Bomskwad)

Top 5 of the evening
Point Guard : M. Velasco (Philly Dribble) (26 Points, 6 Rebounds, 6 Assists, 0 Steals, 1 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 30
Shooting Guard : C. McMahon (War Birds) (36 Points, 4 Rebounds, 1 Assists, 1 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 29
Small Forward : J. Fleurent (Mighty Moose Rockets) (36 Points, 14 Rebounds, 5 Assists, 0 Steals, 2 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 39
Power Forward : W. Kofan (Mighty Moose Rockets) (24 Points, 21 Rebounds, 5 Assists, 1 Steals, 3 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 44
Center : M. Klimenkov (Linndale) (23 Points, 18 Rebounds, 1 Assists, 0 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 38

MVP of the evening
W. Kofan (Mighty Moose Rockets) (24 Points, 21 Rebounds, 5 Assists, 1 Steals, 3 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 44

The bad performance of the evening
Q. Bailey (Dallas Bomskwad) (2 Points, 2 Rebounds, 2 Assists, 1 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : -3

Triple-Double of the evening
S. Dickens (Żubr Białystok) (20 Points, 13 Rebounds, 11 Assists, 2 Steals, 0 Block Shots)

All kinds of statistics
The player who forgot to remove his mittens : G. Locus (Miami Cleo), Q. Bailey (Dallas Bomskwad) : 5 Turnovers

Player targeted by the referees : S. Vretzos (War Birds), D. Minkinen (Żubr Białystok), B. Goričan (Rip City Revival) : 6 Personal Fouls

The iron-man : G. Locus (Miami Cleo), W. Kofan (Mighty Moose Rockets), B. Lutz (Lion Rebels), S. Dickens (Żubr Białystok), S. Hatch (Żubr Białystok) : 48 Minutes

The shooter : C. McMahon (War Birds) : 8 Three points

The best performer : M. Velasco (Philly Dribble), C. Calderón (Dallas Bomskwad) : Rating : 14.0

The worst performer : O. Le (pintipv) : Rating : 4.0

Least Surprising Saturday Results
It was fun to see at least three of the losses on Sunday be less than double digits, but there were a couple of blow outs, with Mighty Moose Rockets, having NOT sold off their cash cows, jumping out to a 10 point led in the first quarter and never really looked back, finishing with 21 more points than Seattle SuperSonicz. 29 year old Jean-Louis Fleurent (previously identified as Cash Cow A) dominated the game with 36 points on 31 shots, though his 3-point range efficiency left a lot to be desired (2-11). Seattle just couldn't hit an important shot, going 5-21 from three.

The other unsurprising result was Dallas Bomskwad's 41 point defeat to Gremlins, scoring only 68 points. The only bright spot for the Bomskwad was Carlos Alberto Calderón, the 21 year old C who had 17 points and 12 rebounds before being shipped off to The Moosketeers in USA DIV III.6 to be paired with another 21 year old 7 footer, Larry Dowd (49430982) and will no longer be a bright spot for the Dallas Skwad.

Closest Saturday Results
Żubr Biały came in against The Beer Bellys with some extra effort to upend them 106-103 with SF Sam Dickens hitting a triple double (20 PTS, 13 REBS, 11 AST). Entering the final quarter, they were up by 6 with four of The Beer Bellys' players injured (one starter, Felipe Guaycuri who had only taken one shot in 17 minutes). With half the quarter gone, they maintained a 5 point lead. Żubr Biały led 100-95 with 2:41 left before Thiess Hinterleitner scoring two free throws after being fouled. 45 seconds later, they'd go up 9, sealing the deal for them on the night with the ending not feeling as close as the final score indicated, but still a disappointing loss for the Bellys, who have to wonder if their fortunes would have been different without all those ankle sprains.

The other close result from Saturday night was Linndale's surprising defeat of Rip City Revival, 82-80, holding Rip to only 8 points in the third quarter to pull off the road upset. Down by 2 at the half, Linndale scored twice as many 3rd quarter points to be up 6 heading into the final frame. With half of the 4th quarter depleted, Rip City found themselves down by 3, 70-67. With 2:56 left, backup SF Zafer Fatik scored from the baseline to cut it to 73-72. After a short time out Fatik then fouled Linndale's SF Arpad Sutori, who sank both free throws. Vitashoka Laddha drove for a layup but missed for Rip City, and starting SG Joe Brown pulled down the defensive rebound, but would go on to miss a hook shot, which was corralled by Laddha. After a weries of misses by both teams over the course of another minute, two free throws were made by backup PF Yiannis Galileos to make it 75-74. But the crowd was brought to its feet a few seconds later after a huge dunk by PF Arley Coronado to give Linndale a three point led. After trading back and forth scores, Rip City called a time out with 38 seconds left, down 79-76. For some reason, Linndale fouled Rip City twice to put them in the bonus and PF Duric scored two from the strip to make it 79-78. A quick foul by Rip brought Sutori to the line, but he missed one of two, leaving it only a two point deficit with 19 seconds left. A full time out later, Ernani Bataglia would get fouled and tie up the game with 10 seconds left. And, as time expired, Linndale's starting PG Thomas Lagorce threaded the ball to PF Arley Coronado who slammed the ball into the hoop to break the tie. BUZZER BEATER!

While Rip City's outside offense and defense were outstanding, Linndale's interior focus and decent offfensive flow proved to be too much, with their starting big men scoring 42 points and bringing down 33 rebounds. While they missed 12 three pointers, they did go 22-28 from the free throw line to aid them in the win. Rip City's starting C was indeed "The Black Hole" with the 37 year old going 0-5 in 33 minutes with only 5 rebounds before he fouled out. He's currently tied at #1 in all of Buzzer Beater for most personal fouls! ;) Vitty Laddha was the only shining star for Rip, scoring 26 points and bringing in 8 rebounds, including 5 three pointers.

Thank you Baine, your assessment and ranking is very generous, hopefully I can live up to it ha ha! Love the interaction in here already!

thatguy's comment got me thinking (RE: his ranking) a bit more about Saturday's games and how 5 teams in the Great 8 were within $20K of each other in salary (2. The Beer Bellys, 3. Żubr Białystok, 4. pintipv, 5. Dallas Bomskwad, & 6. The Ashkickers). While Miami Cleo wasn't in that stratosphere, they were pretty competitive last year, so I was a bit surprised by the apparent beat down pintipv put on them so I dug into their game a bit more. (It is worth noting that the Ashkickers moved themselves into 2nd place in the Great 8 in terms of salary with their recent additions, while Bomskwad has dropped below the salary floor (thus their beatdown Saturday night)).

So, heading into the 2nd half, Miami was trailing by 9 to the new arrivals in pintipv (btw, talk about a STADIUM). They were having a hard time hitting their shots, shooting just 37% from the field, but were staying in it by hitting 7 free throws in 12 attempts (while pintipv had only made 7 trips to the line). The refs definitely seemed to have it in for pintipv in the first half, which made Miami's manager dream of pulling off the road win, if only they could keep it close and start to hit some shots (pintipv wasn't shooting great either - hitting 40% of their first half shots including 1-11 from three point land.

I'll get to my theory in a moment, but suffice it to say, the 3rd quarter was a completely different game - at first, the numbers seem very similar - Miami was 8-22 from the field, including 3-4 from three, while pintipv was 10-22, hitting 3 three pointers (while still missing 6). But the actual story of the quarter was the refs big flip - suddenly pintipv couldn't, wouldn't foul, while Miami doubled their personal foul total, reaching 6 more fouls to match pintipvs total for the first half (and the third quarter, since there weren't any fouls in the period against them). Those fouls led to 9 of 10 free throws made by pintipv helping give them a 13 point advantage in the quarter to increase their lead to 22 entering the final quarter. I heard on Twitter that Elon Musk had a lot riding on pintipv to win the game, so much so that his bid to take over Twitter was at stake, prompting him to pay the refs off to start calling all the fouls on Miami. Game over.

Tuesday Night's Games to Watch
Looks like two games of intrigue tonight - first up: Great 8's #2 The Ashkickers @ #4 Żubr Biały. Ash brought in two new players this week for a total of $689,999. Those fees brought Tylormade a 29-year-old Italian shooting guard with a weekly salary of $44,204, Graziano Gattoni and a 31-year-old Paraguayan point guard with a weekly salary of $51,387 to boost his back court starting salary to just under $100k (up about $70k, depending on how he introduces them to the lineup). But with those additions, he also drops his guards ages by a cumulative 14 years. Both additions should pose viable threats to the rest of the league and probably make Żubr Biały matchup more of a nightmare than it looked like two days ago. whitestok dazzled, as previously outlined thanks to several injuries to The Beer Bellys, pulling off an early upset to win by 3. But, by the looks of it, I'd guess whitestok is at an enthusiasm disadvantage with what also appears to be a significant salary disadvantage - though they're only separated by $30k in the starting 5 salaries.

Prediction: I've got Ashkickers as -250 on the evening for the money line. Against the spread, we're going Ashkickers -15.

The second match up of intrigue tonight is my own Lion Rebels @ Philly Dribble. This matchup wasn't favorable for the Rebels last season, losing both regular season matchups by double digits before getting dusted in the playoffs. Neither team made significant investments to start this season, but this game will definitely depend on the Rebels being able to shut down PG Velasco and SF Glicas. Enthusiasm effort could be another factor as well.

Prediction: I've got Philly as favorites at home, -200 on the money line; against the spread, Philly -10.5.

Gizmo - I can't believe Roc Pedrosa only went for 4 grand! You got robbed on that - I know he's 36, but he's probably got a few more seasons of some decent production.

Day 2 (Tuesday 26 April 2022) : Performances by (https://www.buzzer-manager.com)

Night results
Mighty Moose Rockets 95 - War Birds 102
Lion Rebels 76 - Philly Dribble 107
San Dominica Warriors 85 - Linndale 91
Rip City Revival 99 - Seattle SuperSonicz 85
The Beer Bellys 90 - Miami Cleo 74
pintipv 113 - Dallas Bomskwad 106
Gremlins 100 - Weather Society 85
The Ashkickers 89 - Żubr Białystok 71

Best collective performance of the evening
Points : 113 : pintipv
Rebounds : 63 : Gremlins
Assists : 26 : Gremlins
Steals : 10 : pintipv
Block Shots : 10 : Seattle SuperSonicz

Personal best performances of the evening
Points : 38 : D. Muncy (Seattle SuperSonicz)
Rebounds : 19 : T. Colomina (The Ashkickers)
Assists : 9 : D. Nava (Gremlins)
Steals : 4 : D. Donlon (pintipv)
Block Shots : 6 : T. Colomina (The Ashkickers)

Top 5 of the evening
Point Guard : M. Velasco (Philly Dribble) (19 Points, 5 Rebounds, 4 Assists, 1 Steals, 1 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 27
Shooting Guard : N. Neochoritis (Rip City Revival) (36 Points, 6 Rebounds, 2 Assists, 2 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 40
Small Forward : G. Gattoni (The Ashkickers) (36 Points, 8 Rebounds, 2 Assists, 2 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 32
Power Forward : I. Homs (The Beer Bellys) (31 Points, 13 Rebounds, 2 Assists, 0 Steals, 3 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 39
Center : W. Chan Kiew (Gremlins) (22 Points, 15 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 1 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 36

MVP of the evening
N. Neochoritis (Rip City Revival) (36 Points, 6 Rebounds, 2 Assists, 2 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 40

The bad performance of the evening
G. MacLerie (San Dominica Warriors) (0 Points, 0 Rebounds, 0 Assists, 0 Steals, 0 Block Shots)M. Wade (Gremlins) (0 Points, 1 Rebounds, 0 Assists, 0 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : -5

All kinds of statistics
The player who forgot to remove his mittens : S. Doyle (Mighty Moose Rockets), L. Rojas (The Ashkickers), S. Matthew (Dallas Bomskwad) : 5 Turnovers

Player targeted by the referees : D. Ðuric (Rip City Revival), B. Goričan (Rip City Revival) : 5 Personnal Fouls

The iron-man : K. Brown (Lion Rebels), Y. Delagnès (Żubr Białystok), M. Grimm (Żubr Białystok) : 48 Minutes

The shooter : N. Neochoritis (Rip City Revival) : 7 Three points

The best performer : W. Kofan (Mighty Moose Rockets) : Rating : 16.0

The worst performer : R. Cary (Rip City Revival) : Rating : 3.5

Quick Tuesday Recaps

Alright - I don't even want to do this first one, but since I highlighted it as a "gAmE To wATcH!" I've got to eat my just desserts. Philly took it to the Rebels last night, with a dominate 31 point win. The 2nd and 3rd Quarters were UGLY, with the rebels shooting 10-36 from the field and unable to rebound (15 total rebounds) - comparitively, Philly went 27-45 from the field, including 7-11 from three to go along with their 25 total rebounds. The effort difference was obvious and I'm ashamed to think that I thought my team would be even CLOSE to within double digits in defeat. Star center Terry Armstead was quoted as saying, "I've never been more embarrassed in my life, not even in U13 hoops, and that's saying something."

Moving on to some of the better "actual" games played last night...

San Dominica Warriors vs. Linndale 85 - 91
In the Big 8's #4 vs #7 matchup, San Dominica put a good showing in to only lose by 6 taking a 3 point lead into the 2nd half, only to choke in the 4th, giving up 35 points to newcomer Linndale. Center Mikhail Klimenkov scored 8 pts, while PG Janis Julins added 11 points on 4/5 shooting with another 3 free throws. The team as a whole, had only taken 4 free throws before the 4th, but made 9 of 14 to help complete the comeback. The only damning thing for Speedtrap's squad was the obvious effort difference - pulling a win off early in the season, but we'll have to see how that works out over the course of the rest of the league games. On the other side, Coach Stephenson has to be disappointed in his squad's poor shooting performance on the night with a TIE game win in reach.

pintipv vs. Dallas Bomskwad 113 - 106
In a somewhat surprising showing, the Great 8's #3 v #8 was competitive and topsy turvey with Bomskwad finding themselves down by 10 after the first, up 4 by the half, increasing their lead to 6 heading into the 4th only to fumble it away at the end and allow pintipv 33 points. PG R. Sole scored 12 points in 7 minutes on 4 shots including 5-8 from the free throw line to lead the fourth quarter attack. It's pretty hard to hold off a team shooting 50% from three, especially when they shoot 30 times from behind the arc - good game overall, Manager The Architect has to feel decent after his architecture nearly pulled off the upset after such a poor first showing this season.

Mighty Moose Rockets vs. War Birds 95 - 102
Entering last night, this was Big 8's #1 visiting #6 and after the War Birds lost to the Rebels, I didn't think this would be much of a contest, but effort differences played key in all three of these games of note, with War Birds holding strong at home for the 7 point victory. Down three going into the final frame, the War Birds scored 31 points and held MMR to only 21 points. They were aided by 13 makes at the charity stripe in that quarter to pull off the upset.