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Pio Reina live at halfcourt where Coach is making an announcement.

Coach: I just wanted to tell good folks here at home I'm gonna have to step away from basketball for a few weeks, but I'll be back for the playoffs. Doctor's orders and all that. In my absence, the team will continue running things as they see fit. I guess I'll just have to watch and listen to Happy and Pio like the rest of you good folks.

See you guys in the playoffs, and know I love each and everyone of you all. Thank you for your support.

Hope everything is okay and wish you a speedy recovery!

"Coach thanks you for your concern. He assures all concerned that he will be back for the playoffs and ready to go."

- Vikentij Cimovski, Manager of Public Relations for the Linndale Basketball Club.

Last edited by Speedtraps at 9/20/2022 7:43:52 PM

Pio Reina live postgame with Linndale point guard Bobbie Coenen after tonight's 94-66 win over Miami Cleo. Bobbie, we saw a different style than what we've seen recently. What gives?

Coenen: Pio, we knew Miami would try and slow things down a little bit, and since we wanted to work on some things with our bigs, we thought it best to put the press away both offensively and defensivvely.

Pio: To that end Guevara and Jung starting and playing most of the minutes in the paint was planned?

Coenen: Yeah, and though offensively it wasn't pretty for them, they showed up on the boards and defensively. That's what we wanted to see.

Pio: You had a great night shooting the ball, but it appears that Miami was able to take away your playmaking tonight. Why was that not a problem for the team?

Coenen: I actually have two point about that. First, I made shots and got steals. Those are plays. That's the definition of playmaking.

Pio: I get that. What's your other point?

Coenen: Paul Lutz has been the starting small forward ever since he got here, but I think a lot of folks have forgotten he's listed on the roster as a point guard. Always has been. He came here knowing full well he'd be playing there. He's our second leading scorer, second on assists, 3rd in steals, 3rd in three point shooting percentage AND shooting percentage, first in blocked shots; he just does whatever we need whenever we need it. If the point guard is the team's conductor, he's the percussion. Percussion gotta be steady, man.

Pio: Interesting analogy, Bobbie. What's the takeaway from tonight?

Coenen: Just trying to work on fundamentals of Linndale basketball. Defense, rebounding, taking care of the basketball, and free throw shooting. We have to do a better job taking care of the basketball, and we have to get to the line more. The rebounding is a work in progress; it's not nearly where we want it. The defense was nice, but we can be better. Playoffs are a halfcourt game, so we still have work to do.

Pio: Bobbie Coenen, starting point guard for Linndale. Thanks for joining us Bobbie,

Coenen: Thanks for having me.

Pio: Bobbie had a lot of good things to say about Paul Lutz, but Bobbie was the star of the show tonight. Back to Happy Ourer in the studio!

Last edited by Speedtraps at 9/20/2022 10:16:44 PM

Day 15 (Tuesday 20 September 2022) : Performances by (https://www.buzzer-manager.com)

Night results
Linndale 94 - Miami Cleo 66
Lion Rebels 104 - 2 percent 107
Rip City Revival 143 - Is This Heaven? 28
The Lone Wolf 87 - The Beer Bellys 110
Mighty Moose Rockets 53 - Żubr Białystok 141
Carolina Rebels 83 - Tachenko 103
San Dominica Warriors 121 - Hustlas 109
Philly Dribble 115 - The Ashkickers 125

Best collective performance of the evening
Points : 143 : Rip City Revival
Rebounds : 79 : Rip City Revival
Assists : 43 : Rip City Revival
Steals : 11 : Żubr Białystok
Block Shots : 12 : Rip City Revival

Personal best performances of the evening
Points : 45 : K. Brown (Lion Rebels)
Rebounds : 26 : D. Wilmink (2 percent)
Assists : 10 : E. Rutledge (Rip City Revival)
Steals : 5 : C. Riggins (Żubr Białystok)
Block Shots : 7 : F. Fornels (Rip City Revival)

Top 5 of the evening
Point Guard : K. Brown (Lion Rebels) (45 Points, 7 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 1 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 38
Shooting Guard : F. Carrillo (Lion Rebels) (32 Points, 2 Rebounds, 2 Assists, 1 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 25
Small Forward : G. Gattoni (The Ashkickers) (44 Points, 4 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 0 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 36
Power Forward : F. Fornels (Rip City Revival) (18 Points, 11 Rebounds, 6 Assists, 1 Steals, 7 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 40
Center : Y. Semiramis (The Beer Bellys) (40 Points, 12 Rebounds, 2 Assists, 0 Steals, 1 Block Shots), D. Wilmink (2 percent) (28 Points, 26 Rebounds, 0 Assists, 0 Steals, 4 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 47

MVP of the evening
Y. Semiramis (The Beer Bellys) (40 Points, 12 Rebounds, 2 Assists, 0 Steals, 1 Block Shots), D. Wilmink (2 percent) (28 Points, 26 Rebounds, 0 Assists, 0 Steals, 4 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 47

The bad performance of the evening
W. Huffman (The Beer Bellys) (0 Points, 1 Rebounds, 0 Assists, 1 Steals, 0 Block Shots), : Efficiency : -12

All kinds of statistics
The player who forgot to remove his mittens : E. Kljajević (Mighty Moose Rockets) : 7 Turnovers

Player targeted by the referees : A. Varpukevicius (Miami Cleo), L. Shunhao (Philly Dribble), R. Cuberas (Mighty Moose Rockets), N. Mezzalira (The Lone Wolf), T. Ogata (2 percent) : 6 Personnal Fouls

The iron-man : A. Gallucci (Miami Cleo), E. Albright (Mighty Moose Rockets), E. Kljajević (Mighty Moose Rockets), W. Johnson (Mighty Moose Rockets), T. Plummer (Carolina Rebels), B. George (Carolina Rebels), J. Cantrell (Is This Heaven?), T. Medina (Lion Rebels), D. Harden (Lion Rebels), S. Hatch (Żubr Białystok), J. Gołas (2 percent), D. Wilmink (2 percent) : 48 Minutes

The shooter : K. Brown (Lion Rebels), F. Carrillo (Lion Rebels), K. Huk (Hustlas) : 7 Three points

The best performer : N. Neochoritis (Rip City Revival) : Rating : 17.0

The worst performer : W. Johnson (Mighty Moose Rockets), B. Ross (Is This Heaven?) : Rating : 0.5

"The Hustlas are in trouble. All of their players are on the transfer wire, and they lost two in a row. With 7 players, you will struggle to win when players are exhausted halfway through games. Even still, better coaching could have resulted in possibly two wins. But that's all a toss up," says ESPN anchor 1.

The second anchor took a deep breath. "This season for the Hustlas is over. Unless they can make a profit off of their players and rebuild immediately like they've done before, I don't see them staying in this division. Sorry for them, they had a good half season, but it's over."

"I agree. No playoffs this season, and demotion next season. That's what I see. And I think it would be wise to tank a little bit," says the first anchor.

"I agree," says the second. "Make some money, build your roster, have some luck, and hopefully move on up. Because these next few seasons are shot. And if they try to win, it will only get worse."

Bobby Sparks, GM of the Hustlas watch the show as they talk sbout his team. "You never know what cards I have up my sleeves," he says to no one in particular. "We are not making any money on these players. If we don't make money, we can't buy new players, and this franchise is over and done with. Maybe it's time. I am thinking of buying my own team. But we'll see. Hope is still alive. And we know what we're capable of."

The owner of the Hustlas, "Yes, we know, we showed it, but that's it. I'm tired. And I don't want to sale. I want it to be over."

"You can't be serious," says Bobby Sparks.

"I am. I love this game, I love this league, and this division, it's excellent. I love these teams here. But, I am tired. It's time to fold."

"If you do," says Bobby Sparks. "Do I have permission to use the Hustlas name? For my own team and businesses once I get started?"

The Owner looks at him, "We'll see Bobby, we'll see."

"It's over. Time to hang them up," says the owner of the Hustlas. There are no players, thus no team. They are all gone, and we are still in debt. Most of the players were undersold, but, nothing we can do about it. But, I will fold this team and it's other team, and call it a career."

"I say we wait," says Bobby Sparks, GM. "Let's see what happens. Maybe we can recover, though that will take multiple seasons. But let's see if we can get lucky. We have a few weeks left. We will not have a team for at.least two to three weeks. That's six losses right there. That would put us at 11-10. And maybe by then we have a team. Relegation may be or may not be in the cards. We will see. But we need about 9 good quality players. Or we can field a team that can compete at the lowest levels, but we get relegated the next two to three seasons. I don't mind starting over. It was fun then. Though it was more fun now before you took it to extremes with the final purchase, and then refusal to get rid of it cut him. You did the same with the other team. But you are the owner."

"Yes I am. And I guess that's why I should hang it up now. But, we will see what happens. Salvage this season, if you can. And if you can't, no harm done."

I've been exactly where you are right now. I liquidated the entire club and got about 1-1.2m for a rebuild. It was brutal. I fired all of my staff and just reset the economics of my club. My strategy was to find two trainees for 80% of my capital. I tried to find guys that were about 22-24 with high potential, that I knew I could train and sell for a profit. Nobody on that roster was a long term guy. . everyone was an asset or filler to help me get to the minimum salary for the league. It took a bit, but slowly I was able to pull through and start getting back to a club that felt more like what I was used to. Along the way I learned that I wanted a different type of player. I decided to focus most of my investment on guys that could have a defensive build, and on guys that had high secondaries. For my current club it means that I've got multiple guys that are +10 OD and ID. Everyone builds differently and I don't know what the right way is. For me anchoring around defense has been a way for me to get higher TSP with somewhat lower salaries.

Good luck with your rebuild. I know you didn't get the money you wanted but hopefully that just means you'll find guys for cheap right now because the market is down.

Thanks. It sucks, but was fun while it lasted. I've always wanted a defensive focus and glue guys as those teams perform very well overall. And two shooters. The team I just had, my top shooter was one of my lower paid guys. I'll just wait to get some money which will take a few weeks, and then I'll do what you suggested. In the meantime, my empty team will destroy our next opponent, lol. In the dreams of the fans only.

Week Eight Power Rankings - Part One
Fair gap between the last power rankings and these ones thanks to the insufferable all-star week break. But, there's been some sizable changes despite records looking about the same as before the all-star week and so, for the FIRST TIME EVER, I will be making some slight adjustments to the rankings rather than solely basing them on EFFG and OPP EFFG (though the majority of it will stick to that). Here we go!

1. Rip City Revival (2)
EFFG: 1 OPP EFFG: 1
Jbogoroff and them boys vaulted themselves back into first on this list with three dominating wins helped by finishing off his run through the Great 8 by slaughtering their bottom two teams. On the road against San Dom this week before playing host to Philly Dribble in what should probably the TV game of the week!

2. Philly Dribble(1)
EFFG: 2 OPP EFFG: 2
Dethroned from their temporary leading spot, Phil_Wings suffered not only their 2nd loss of the season, but finally got knocked out of the Cup in the round of 16 by 21st ranked New York Dragons. Playing on the road against The Ahskickers on Tuesday, they started out slow, trailing by 18 at the half, and while they outscored the opponent in both of the last two quarters, it still wasn't enough to overcome the deficit brought on in part by G. Gattoni's 44 point outburst thanks to 6 three pointers on the evening. They have a cakewalk in The Lone Wolf this weekend before their showdown with Rip City.

3. San Dominica Warriors (4)
EFFG: 5 OPP EFFG: 3
Coach Stephenson's boys continue to prove their defense is nothing to sneeze at while slightly improving on offense. Despite being fourth in the standings, they do boast a better point differential than their counterpart Linndale. While they lost (a bit surprisingly) to Żubr Białystok on the road before the all-star game, they went on to defeat Tachenko in prime time before handling the suddenly dismantled Hustlas on the road to move up the highest on this ranking this season. But they'll face a stiff test against Rip City before taking on a lackadaisical Lion Rebels on the road.

4. Linndale (3)
EFFG: 4 OPP EFFG: 6
Despite selling some key components, Linndale has stayed more than relevant. Losing in Hustlas Last Hurrah by one point in the last tv game before the break, they went on to hand The Ashkickers a loss and then dominated Miami Cleo in their last cross-league matchup of the season. Next up is Mighty Moose Rockets (no longer the lone slouches in the league) before playing host to the upstart Carolina Rebels next week.

5. The Ashkickers (6)
EFFG: 6 OPP EFFG: 4
Relying on their defense to stop opponents while still netting at a decent rate, Tylormade's crew sits atop the Great 8 for the home stretch, having proved themselves capable in several cross-league matchups and mostly dominant in their own half. While they picked up their third loss against Linndale, they proved their worth against Philly on Tuesday. Should be an easy walk this week as they host The Beer Bellys before traveling to the newly botified Is This Heaven? in a television matchup.

Week Eight Power Rankings - Part Two

6. Tachenko (7)
EFFG: 7 OPP EFFG: 7
If they're ranked 7th in both categories, how are they ranked 6th overall, readers may ask. Well, the answer shall soon be revealed, my friends. Tachenko, surprisingly sits 4th in the Great 8, but their capability on the court can't be denied. A loss to Philly before the break wasn't expected but not out of the sphere of the possible, while Coach Stephenson brought the fire in the first game back, holding kokka's group to only 69 points, scoring more than 20 in only one quarter and shooting a paltry 19% from beyond the arc on 27 shots. They rebounded with a nice win over Carolina Rebels to close out their Big 8 schedule and resume with what should be a win against the somewhat upstart 2 percent before traveling for a key matchup against whitestok's crew potentially for 3rd place in the Great 8.

7. Żubr Białystok (10)
EFFG: 8 OPP EFFG: 8
Żubr Białystok makes a leap up the rankings thanks to two nice wins against solid competitors combined with a matchup with MMR. They have two important games this week, first traveling to Miami for a TV game before playing host to Tachenko. How will the Great 8 sort itself out?

8. Miami Cleo (9)
EFFG: 13 OPP EFFG: 5
packer_22 has got to be thankful for a two point win on the road after the all-star game to prop themselves up a little bit after losing to Rip City before getting trounced by Linndale. They too have important matchups with the aforementioned Żubr Białystok faceoff before traveling to the Keg to face The Beer Bellys.

9. Lion Rebels (8)
EFFG: 9 OPP EFFG: 9
A five game skid through the all-star break was NOT expected for this group - but mismanagement of gameshapes and tactics leaves them with only 5 wins on the season and assured of a relegation matchup. Their only hope at this point is to swing a favorable one and avoid relegation, though ownership has been overheard in secret meetings contemplating if dropping down to Div IV would be feasible for a season. Important games against San Dominica and Carolina Rebels loom for the struggling Lion Rebels.

10. Carolina Rebels (12)
EFFG: 12 OPP EFFG: 11
A nice move up for Carolina with a nice win on the road at the Keg before dropping a close one to whitestok and dem boys and then getting handled by Tachenko. They're looking for revenge and to seal their spot at 5th in the Great 8 in their initial foray to Div III playing host to Lion Rebels before traveling for a TV game against Linndale next week. Their manager Daisy Merollin had a touching, albeit not very eloquent, press release for the mysterious drama surrounding Linndale's coach.

11. The Beer Bellys (11)
EFFG: 11 OPP EFFG: 12
The Beer Bellys find themselves in a similar boat as their cross-league fellow 6th in the standings cohort Lion Rebels. Trying to balance training and not losing too badly, they had a nice run this week after dropping that last game before the all-star break to Carolina, defeating MMR and The Lone Wolf to finish out their Big 8 tenure for the season. Unfortunately they face a difficult matchup on the road against the Ashkickers before hosting Miami in what might be a must-win game for the keggerators.

Week Eight Power Rankings - Part Three

12. 2 percent (13)
EFFG: 10 OPP EFFG: 14
2 percent took advantage of some mismanagement to defeat the Lion Rebels by 3 this week at home to make it 3 wins out of their last four games, quadrupling their win total for the season. While they face Tachenko this weekend, they also get to play host to the newly No Players Rostered Hustlas next week, in what is looking like what should be their 5th win of the season and could potentially put them just one game behind The Beer Bellys in the standings.

13. The Lone Wolf (14)
EFFG: 14 OPP EFFG: 13
After an 11th straight loss, the Lone Wolf broke that streak with a 14 point win over Is This Heaven? before stumbling against The Beer Bllys on the road. Another loss looms before a potential 3rd win against MMR next week. They're resigned to a relegation matchup, but need to make up several wins to try and get a better matchup from the otherside.

14. Mighty Moose Rockets (16)
EFFG: 16 OPP EFFG: 16
While Hutch44's group is still ranked dead last in both qualifying categories, they're also not a bot AND still have players rostered, which puts them in 14th at this point in the season according to my scientific calculations. While they will most likely "improve" their 15-game losing streak to 16 this weekend, they do have a chance to pull it out and try to defeat The Lone Wolf next Tuesday for their first win of the season.

15. Is This Heaven? (16)
EFFG: 15 OPP EFFG: 15
Don't know why, but sorta sad to see this team go bot. The only reason they're here at 15th is because...

16. Hustlas (5)
EFFG: 3 OPP EFFG: 10
...Reece blew things up (understandably so, from his reports). With no players rostered, even a bot team has to be considered the favorite. While they would have been 6th in this list, I take my duty as Power Ranking Commissioner very seriously and my morals would not stand for an injustice such as leaving him at 6th with no players employed. Regardless, best of luck is wished and hopefully Reece can stick around through next season as well!