BuzzerBeater Forums

Upsets at the top and status quo below. Let's get into the rankings!

Big 8 Power rankings:
1) BPE(4-1)
2) Gators(5-0)
3) Big Beavers(5-0)
4) WildHoochieKoos(2-3)
5) Snake River Panthers(1-4)

Great 8 power rankings:
1A)Hard2Guard(4-1)
1B)Boynton Birdseye(4-1)
1C)The Duck City Ninjas(4-1)
4)Clemson Cavs(4-1)
5)Jersey Blazing Heat(3-2)
6)The Barack O'Ballers(0-5)

discussion/explanation: once again, the Great 8 is wide open...however, I still would put Duck City and Boyton a good way above them simply based on how I've seen each of those teams play to date. Also, I'll explain keeping BPE at number one in the Big 8 soon...for now let's get into the games. For Hard2Guard @ the O'Ballers...do I need to say again how Gaugl just cannot carry this team like in season past and how he isn't getting nearly enough help? It's sad to see a team 2 seasons removed from making the playoffs go like this. Their inactivity makes it quite possible that I'll drop them from the ranking within 1-2 weeks. Moving onto Hooch and Snake River...the Panthers have been inactive since selling Cousido and have been equally depressing to cover. The leash on them is longer, but by the end of this month, they could be gone from the rankings if they stay inactive. Moving onto the more competitive games where I'm going to actually give actual analysis...The 13 point victory by Clemson over Jersey is part of what I mean by Duck City and Boyton looking more impressive. Jersey is no joke, but a contending team probably beats them by at least double what Clemson did. Their bigs were impressive, controlling the boards and scoring efficiently, but the turnovers are something to watch when they face stiffer competition. Now onto one of the mega matches...and Boyton, with their older experienced players, came into Duck City without their leading scorer and won. That shooting guard slot seems to be bursting at the seams with talent, their point guard got to the line 17 times-something that shows aggressive play, which I like in a player, especially when he's making 15 of those free throws-and their starting bigs combined for 33 rebounds including 9 offensive rebounds. Not to mention, all of this was on the road in front of 10k+ fans. Duck City played mostly well, but Boyton made a statement. Lastly, we have BPE @ Gators...I was not expecting to win this game to be honest. BPE had beaten my squad every time we faced each other every time since he pulled the 72-67 upset in the semifinals not too long ago...however, between good defense and great rebounding by the Gators, a herculean scoring effort from Florian Lackey, earning every last dollar of that very expensive salary, and an off shooting game from BPE, especially Ladner, it actually happened. I'm leaving BPE at number one in the power because I'm not sure if this will happen again and I still see them as overall the better team, but the win still feels nice.

I'm keeping Snake River and the O'Ballers in for now, but their time left if they aren't active again soon is very short. Also, more madness! Let's get into it

Big 8 Power rankings:
1A) BPE(4-2)
1B) Big Beavers(6-0)
1C) Gators(6-0)
4) WildHoochieKoos(3-3)
5) Snake River Panthers(2-4)

Great 8 power rankings:
1A)Hard2Guard(5-1)
1B)Boynton Birdseye(5-1)
3A)The Duck City Ninjas(4-2)
3B)Clemson Cavs(5-1)
5)Jersey Blazing Heat(3-3)
6)The Barack O'Ballers(1-5)

discussion/explanation: the standings haven't updated yet so can't comment on it...as is tradition, I'll just stick to user v user games, but me and Hard2Guard respectively just ran the computer teams in front of us out the gym. Boyton jumped out to a huge first-quarter lead, then Jersey settled but could never quite put together a push to get back into the game. Boyton thoroughly dominated all aspects of the game, but assist and turnovers were especially dominated by Boyton's squad. Up next...we have more of what I was expecting flipping on its head. Once again, a team plays crunch time effort on BPE and gets the win. This time it was Big Beavers and kudos to them for doing it without their starting point guard and doing it at BPE. The three-point line and the charity stripe both seemed to work out great for them, and I can't stress enough how valiant of an effort Campio Alonso put in in this spot start. Forcing BPE into 16 turnovers also helped their cause. Lastly, Clemson was able to defend home court and pull off an upset of their own, taking down Duck City in a close, hard-fought game. In the end, however, the biggest difference in the game seemed to be this: Duck City was 4-4 on free throws...Clemson...23-27. I don't think that's going to happen again. It didn't help Duck City's case, however, that Tilge seemed to choke down the stretch.

Snake River will stay in the rankings for now but the O'Ballers are still on the deadline of the 20th. Anyway, let's get into this.

Big 8 Power rankings:
1A) BPE(5-2)
1B)Gators(7-0)
1C)Big Beavers(6-1)
4) WildHoochieKoos(4-3)
5) Snake River Panthers(3-4)

Great 8 power rankings:
1A)Hard2Guard(6-1)
1B)Boynton Birdseye(6-1)
3A)Clemson Cavs(5-2)
3B)The Duck City Ninjas(4-3)
5)Jersey Blazing Heat(4-3)
6)The Barack O'Ballers(2-5)

discussion/explanation: no real close games yesterday...well...except for one. We'll get started with the Gators and Big Beavers in a game where the result even surprised me. Even with the effort gap, I would expect more like a 20 point game at worst. Brathen got his fairly efficiently, but other than that, their shooting was just off. Next onto Clemson and Boyton in just another measuring stick game where they passed with flying colors, getting to a good start and really putting it on in the second quarter. Ciobanu continues to impress, and their overall efficiency really helped; one aspect that Clemson once again dominated in, however, was free throws, though this was another game in front of their 12k+ home fans. Onto the final game, the one big upset of the day, Jersey, and Duck City. After a solid 3 quarters by Jersey, they put their best one together in the fourth when Duck City tried to make its rally at the end and gave their home fans quite the game. Other than rebounding, nothing stood out as a big advantage for Jersey, so I'll give the credit to Eryüzlü, Martelli, and Joya off the bench for their major contributions of 41 total rebounds and 10 offensive rebounds, along with their second-leading scorer Shiu ling who had 7 boards of his own and their leading scorer Avdeenko who had 6 including 4 offensive boards.

Last edited by Rob Da Man at 8/12/2018 4:36:39 PM

Some interesting games last time around. Let's get into it.

Big 8 Power rankings:
1A) BPE(6-2)
1B)Gators(8-0)
1C)Big Beavers(7-1)
4) WildHoochieKoos(5-3)
5) Snake River Panthers(3-5)

Great 8 power rankings:
1)Hard2Guard(7-1)
2)Boynton Birdseye(6-2)
3A)Clemson Cavs(6-2)
3B)The Duck City Ninjas(5-3)
5)Jersey Blazing Heat(5-3)
6)The Barack O'Ballers(2-6)

discussion/explanation: Ok...I had this ready a day or two ago but took too long to post and forgot to hop onto another page so I'd lost it and was too frustrated to type it all again. Well, here I am now and I won't make that mistake again. Anyway...onto the first re-written analysis...I'm not even going to go in depth on Duck City and Snake River...all you need to see to sum up how the game went: 6 assists to 26 turnovers...24 assists to 9 turnovers...that sets up the picture pretty well. Onto Big Beavers and the O'Ballers...Gaugl turned back the clock and once again provided a virtuoso performance, but it wasn't nearly enough against the Big Beavers team ball play, even with them "taking it easy" in this one. They simply had a slight advantage in everything except for free throws. Lastly, we have Hooch with a surprise win against Boyton, even with the fact that Hooch played this game as a "crunch time" game. It seemed to come down to the fact that Boyton simply wasn't hitting their shots which Hooch, inside the 3 point arc, was. The disparity in free throws also helped contribute to the 17 point margin by the end of the game.

I feel honored that teams feel the need to play "crunch time" against me lol.

That's fair lol, I definitely think that going 6-1 against the Great 8 kind of earns you that with basically everyone except H2G, BPE, and maybe Big Beavers and me. Maybe. I won't give that info away yet ;)

Gators vs H2G, 2 juggernauts going at it. I thought it was too soon for me to be up there. Lol I remember I crunch timed H2G. I think that the Big 8 is as competitive.

We have some stuff to get into...let's do it!

Big 8 Power rankings:
1A) BPE(7-2)
1B)Gators(9-0)
1C)Big Beavers(8-1)
4) WildHoochieKoos(6-3)
5) Snake River Panthers(3-6)

Great 8 power rankings:
1)Hard2Guard(7-2)
2)Boynton Birdseye(7-2)
3A)Clemson Cavs(7-2)
3B)The Duck City Ninjas(6-3)
5)Jersey Blazing Heat(5-4)

discussion/explanation: well...D-Day has come and gone for the O'Ballers. Press F to pay respects...
F
Ok, now that that's done, let's get into the games. Hooch beating the O'Ballers will be covered because the O'Ballers cutoff day came and went...just know that it's the same old story of Gaugl playing well and everyone else getting overwhelmed. Onto the games I'll actually cover..just, to sum up how the game went between BPE and Jersey, BPE had more bench players score 10 points than Jersey had guys in total doing that. Also, Jersey's third-leading rebounder had the same total rebounds as BPE's starting SF who was tied for the third-leading rebounder on his own team had offensive rebounds. Onto Clemson and Snake River...Clemson was almost as dominant. There isn't anything too specific to point out just how dominant they were, but they certainly impressed, even if it was against a shaky Snake River squad. Finally onto maybe the match of the year...where Gomez's dunk with 12 seconds left earned the win, but it wasn't without more action after in the form of an offensive rebound with 2 seconds left...and a missed putback layup! This game was as statistically even as any I have ever seen-it's astonishing-and the game could have truly gone either way.

the games weren't that amazing this week but let's still get into it

Big 8 Power rankings:
1A) BPE(8-2)
1B)Gators(10-0)
3)Big Beavers(8-2)
4)WildHoochieKoos(7-3)
5)Snake River Panthers(3-7)

Great 8 power rankings:
1)Hard2Guard(8-2)
2)Boynton Birdseye(8-2)
3A)Clemson Cavs(8-2)
3B)The Duck City Ninjas(6-4)
5)Jersey Blazing Heat(6-4)

discussion/explanation: finally I get around to making this!...to start, Boyton was so dominant that their offensive rebounds would be more than half of Snake River's in that game and the assist to turnover ratios were nearly a reverse image of each other. Basically, Snake River got curb stomped and couldn't do a thing to stop it. Just another thing to show how dominant Boyton was: they had 7 double-digit scorers to Boyton's 2, and all but one of Boyton's 12 players had a scoring total that matched or exceeded the 3rd highest scoring total on Snake River's team. Up next, we have Hard2Guard seemingly taking out frustrations about losing to me on Bug Beavers. As you can see, I dropped Big Beavers from their T1 spot because while the loss wasn't a surprise, the margin was for sure. Free throws had a large disparity, H2G also had an offensive rebound total that was more than half of the Big Beaver's total rebounds, and shooting was overall much more of a struggle for the Big Beavers at 27-28% than for H2G at around 49%. Finally, onto a game that didn't feel like a funeral for one team, BPE took care of business against Duck City, though Duck City put up a good fight. What seemed to kill Duck City's chances was 18% shooting from 3 on 28 attempts along with 20 fewer free throw attempts and 11 fewer makes. Overall, Pai put on his Superman cape but BPE had the kryptonite of team ball that got them the win.

SRP is once again selling a key player. I just messaged them a week ago and confirmed they definitely have a plan. They should have plenty of money and draft picks. They definitely have a future!
Edit: let’s just say what they’re doing is referred to as “tanking”

Last edited by Rexo at 8/25/2018 2:28:13 PM

it's certainly a strategy. A great draft pick can certainly be a game changer (for example, Basham was such a good pick early on that he's been the starter basically since I drafted him). If I'm going through with his plan though, I'm definitely trying to stockpile up enough scouting points to be able to evaluate EVERYTHING about every player, then hope to have a good enough draft board to be confident in at least the top 10-12 guys.