At half time things didn't look good. I could barely eat my burger (we brought food with us, none of us wanted to eat bagpipes while we listened to the Scots play their haggises.) We were six down. We were turning the ball over, not rebounding very well, and not really passing well.
This week was worse. I was actually feeling embarrassed by half time we were that bad. I felt the double wrong gdp guess was the cause and I really couldn't see the second half being different. Well, I was wrong about that too.
In Buzzerbeater, as in actual sport, sometimes the coaches make brilliant tactical decisions that get their teams the victory. And sometimes, like last night, coaches are idiots and get lucky. To be honest, I don't feel the gdp guess was that bad. However, I think my comment a couple of weeks ago about not gdping may have led our opponent last night to stay away from look inside. Either way I'm at fault.
Anyway, back to the game. I actually missed the start of the second half, (sandwiches), and by the time I returned we were actually back in the game. At this point I actually felt worse, because at least at half time we were so far behind that I'd thought the double guess wouldn't have made a difference.
What went right for us? Well, in the first half Lee Smith was shooting well, and was one of our bright spots, but we didn't seem to be getting the ball to him as often as we would have wanted. In the second half it was completely different. Everything seemed to revolve around him. I think I'm stating the obvious when I say his 47 points made him our MVP.
Other good things include the turnover difference, we only made 6 which is very good at any level. I may however need to look at my selections in future, without naming names it did appear that at least one backup should perhaps have been starting.
Two players made their first appearance for the team last night. Ewen MacIlvora, who was called up because a couple of guards were unfit came in as a backup, and Gregory Witt started and did what I expected him to do and then some, even managing to hit a 3pt shot.
I don't tend to single out players but for once I feel its important to do so with Witt. He wasn't drafted, he was the allstar 18yo on Titanic Turtles' start up team. He's an example of what a newbie can do with one of their original players. Admittedly not everyone receives on as good as Witt was but to make the u21 team as a 20yo is impressive. Another thing I'd like to point out is that Witt was called up because he has higher SB than most of the other bigs in the squad. At some point, if I stay on, I will simply stop picking players that don't have the SB I want.