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🏀 HGL Game Report – Buckner Bandits vs. Swan River Serpents
Final Score: Buckner Bandits 110, Swan River Serpents 92

🌟 Statement Win: Bandits Bounce Back with Authority
After a rough debut in the HGL’s inaugural game, the Buckner Bandits responded with poise and firepower, securing a dominant 110–92 victory over the Swan River Serpents. It was a total team performance fueled by physical rebounding, efficient passing, and a standout showing from star shooting guard Mick Hunt, who dropped a game-high 33 points on 50% shooting.

📊 Quarter Breakdown
Quarter Buckner Bandits - Swan River Serpents
1st 30 - 24
2nd 33 - 12
3rd 24 - 20
4th 23 - 36
Total 110 - 92
The Bandits set the tone in the second quarter, blitzing the Serpents with a 33–12 run that effectively put the game out of reach by halftime.

🔥 Player of the Game: Mick Hunt
Hunt came out hunting from the tip, finishing with:

33 points (12-24 FG, 2-4 3PT, 7-8 FT)

5 assists, 4 rebounds

+21 plus-minus
He attacked the Serpents' weak interior defense, slashing into the lane and drawing fouls while hitting key midrange jumpers. His aggressive play carved up Swan River’s soft 3-2 zone.

🎯 Supporting Cast Contributions
T. Lawler was instant offense off the bench with 23 points, showing confidence from deep and attacking in transition.

W. Moore (12 pts, 11 reb, 5 ast) anchored the post with composure, cleaning up second-chance opportunities.

E. Long and G. Patterson combined for 18 points and 15 boards, helping the Bandits dominate the glass.

Rookie big Greyson Tobin made his presence felt defensively, pulling down 10 rebounds and adding 3 blocks in just 22 minutes.

📉 Serpents Slither, But Can’t Strike
Despite a 36-point eruption from forward C. Mikedis, the Serpents lacked support elsewhere.

They shot just 40.5% overall and committed 12 turnovers.

Their post presence was ineffective, especially with center E. Livingstone going 1-8 from the floor.

Weak interior defense (rated inept) was fully exposed as the Bandits punished them with put-backs and smart cuts.

📊 Team Stats Comparison
Category Bandits Serpents
FG% 49.5% (46-93) 40.5% (34-84)
3PT% 27.8% 39.4%
Free Throws 13-17 (76.5%) 11-14 (78.6%)
Rebounds 53 41
Assists 26 17
Turnovers 8 12
Blocks 9 4
The Bandits were simply more disciplined, outworking the Serpents on the boards and sharing the ball beautifully.

🧠 Coach's Notes: Strategic Execution
The Bandits stuck to their Patient offense against the Serpents’ 3-2 zone, exploiting gaps with quick ball movement and high-low action.
Defensively, the Man-to-Man scheme clamped down on Swan River’s motion offense, forcing contested jumpers and limiting dribble penetration.

💥 Key Moment: Second-Quarter Surge
From a 24–30 deficit to a 63–36 halftime lead, the Bandits went on a 33–12 run, sparked by Hunt’s back-to-back threes and a thunderous put-back dunk by Tobin that brought the home crowd to its feet. The momentum never swung back.

📅 What’s Next?
With the Bandits now 1-1 and finding their rhythm, the team heads into Week 3 with momentum and confidence. Expect Mick Hunt to keep leading the charge, while the frontcourt continues to develop chemistry and defensive cohesion.

Last edited by T-Lit at 4/11/2025 9:25:16 AM

Nice write-up, T-Lit...and very accurate.

Enjoy your win today! The Serpents will strike...one day...I hope :-)

Nice write-up, T-Lit...and very accurate.

Enjoy your win today! The Serpents will strike...one day...I hope :-)

You know it is only a matter of time before you are dominating the league. I think we are going to have a very competitive rivalry for many many seasons!!

Also, thank you about the write up, ever since our school showed us chatgpt it's been fun playing around with it. Slowly I am giving my players personalities and the chatgpt remembers it and incorporates it in interviews and what not I've done in my actual league summary's.

Really cool! Hope you have a good weekend man!

Here I am planting blueberry bush and trying to construct a potato tower for the first time!! :-)

Nice write-up, T-Lit...and very accurate.

Enjoy your win today! The Serpents will strike...one day...I hope :-)

Yes, very entertaining to read these, so thank you again for your match report T-Lit!
Big thanks also to Hadár for Round 2 teams/players best performances-stats!

We had 2 thrillers already in the second round, what an interesting round!
Elan Demars (7th in top8 salaries; 'S#7') won Suuret Muinaiset (S#4) by only 2 points, and with that demars secured an edge over cthulhu if these teams end up with same points after Regular Season.
Same goes with Rajdersi (S#6) who was able to find the decisive edge in another nail-biter against WiMaOlCa (S#5) - 3 points was the difference between these two close contestants.

So if we compare only top8-salaries, two (slightly) underdog teams (SUM 371K v. ED 280K, and RAJ 301K v. WIM 328K) were able to get wins in important contest against 'same level' opponents.

I just updated a league table, reflecting league situation after Round 2 of play. Like you can see, league table may or may not (depending on scoring differential comparison result) reflect correct position of teams when having same amount of wins.

In this case it does not reflect correct league positions currently.
As you can see, RAJ is below WMO, and ED below SUM despite winning their regular season match against that opponent in question (opponent, who has same amount of points). (If this would have been the last Round of Regular Season, I would have made those corrections manually to the league table to reflect true team positions).

I think this reflects well the benefits of using this kind of ranking order/system. If we use these 4 teams as an example, while WMO and SUM have better scoring difference (and due to that are now positioned upper in this 'uncalibrated/uncorrected', yet still official, league table), I think it's fair to say that RAJ and ED, having won their opponents in question/comparison, deserve to be rated higher on ORSR (Official Regular Season Rankings) if after Regular Season they are tied with wins (which of course equals to same amount of points, if no forfeits) against WMO and SUM, respectively.

But there isn't currently a simple way to resolve this (no, not going to use point differential as a first/most important comparison method..) without doing manual work and checks and corrections for each Round separately (which also would add the probability of data input/editing errors and such), so if you wonder whether you're actually upper or lower in league table than your opposing team which has same number of wins this season, please check out which team won your regular season match (if already played) and you have your answer. :)

Last edited by Wagner at 4/12/2025 6:22:48 AM

Nice write-up, T-Lit...and very accurate.

Enjoy your win today! The Serpents will strike...one day...I hope :-)

You know it is only a matter of time before you are dominating the league. I think we are going to have a very competitive rivalry for many many seasons!!

Also, thank you about the write up, ever since our school showed us chatgpt it's been fun playing around with it. Slowly I am giving my players personalities and the chatgpt remembers it and incorporates it in interviews and what not I've done in my actual league summary's.

Really cool! Hope you have a good weekend man!

Here I am planting blueberry bush and trying to construct a potato tower for the first time!! :-)

Nice. Are you a prepper or a green thumb?

Last edited by MrJ at 4/12/2025 6:02:58 AM

Nice write-up, T-Lit...and very accurate.

Enjoy your win today! The Serpents will strike...one day...I hope :-)

You know it is only a matter of time before you are dominating the league. I think we are going to have a very competitive rivalry for many many seasons!!

Also, thank you about the write up, ever since our school showed us chatgpt it's been fun playing around with it. Slowly I am giving my players personalities and the chatgpt remembers it and incorporates it in interviews and what not I've done in my actual league summary's.

Really cool! Hope you have a good weekend man!

Here I am planting blueberry bush and trying to construct a potato tower for the first time!! :-)

Well...

...I think that is a few seasons away.

I got beaten up by a BOT in my cup game Thursday night! Lol

I made a rookie mistake not even noticing it was a bot and at least getting the tactics right.

Not a big deal though. With an 8- man roster and my original line-ups not going well week 1 (still got training done though) I am now not playing a 3rd game each week to get the minutes right. It means training 4 trainees instead of 6 in 2-positions but it's OK.

Like i said...this is the worst my team will ever be and we can only continue to improve from here.

I should have had an upset tactical win tonight but ended in OT which then exposed my small roster and we had run out of energy at that point.

Last edited by MrJ at 4/12/2025 6:10:02 AM

I got beaten up by a BOT in my cup game Thursday night! Lol

I made a rookie mistake not even noticing it was a bot and at least getting the tactics right.

I can totally relate to disappointments on first round of cup, as I've had such experience on season 32!
In your case at least you have a good explanation (small roster, and being in the beginning of your HG project), while in my case (on season 32) I had an arrogant approach to match, left best players out of match lineup and suffered a ridiculous loss due to that (even though I even remembered to guess tactics). At least it has kept me humble since... ;D

Last edited by Wagner at 4/12/2025 6:32:07 AM

I got beaten up by a BOT in my cup game Thursday night! Lol

I made a rookie mistake not even noticing it was a bot and at least getting the tactics right.

I can totally relate to disappointments on first round of cup, as I've had such experience on season 32!
In your case at least you have a good explanation (small roster, and being in the beginning of your HG project), while in my case (on season 32) I had an arrogant approach to match, left best players out of match lineup and suffered a ridiculous loss due to that (even though I even remembered to guess tactics). At least it has kept me humble since... ;D

Yep, I think we've all done that at some point.

I have just published some HGL team stats from first 3 Rounds of play, please check them out here if you're interested: (326590.9)!

I have just published some HGL team stats from first 3 Rounds of play, please check them out here if you're interested: (326590.9)!

Nice.

I have just published some HGL team stats from first 3 Rounds of play, please check them out here if you're interested: (326590.9)!

Nice.

Thanks, and thank you for your stats as well (once again). It's very nice people are willing to put in some effort for this league, it also inspires me to do more. Like you guys have noticed, there aren't any FG stats currently - I'm trying to add some of them too at some point, but unfortunately they are the ones that take most work as I haven't found an easy workaround to transfer and count them even semi-automatically.
And adding only pts scored and pts allowed categories do not alone reveal the quality of defense, as tempo varies per team, and also other things (such as rebounding-%, amount of turnovers and blocks - own and forced) affect those stats too... so FG% and Defensive FG% would better reflect team scoring and defensive ability.

I remember you mentioned you're into stats, and I'm definitely like that too.
I've currently written 13 more categories on a note, of which I try to select and add some extra stats at a later date. I wish all of them would be available automatically, but for me stats are so important that I'm occasionally willing to take the extra mile for them.
As a tasting, some of the extra stats (out of those 13 categories) I've been considering including some of these:
- Assist/turnover ratio,
- some 'margin stats' (for instance, own rebounds-opponent's rebounds; these can however be already calculated by anyone, based on stats I provided earlier),
- FTA/FGA,
- STL+BL/TO,
- STL/TO,
- Rebounding %,
- % of 3P attempts of all FG attempts,
- FG ATT/match (own+opponent; pace of match revealed), etc...

I don't think I'll be realistically able to add all above mentioned (or at least all those 13) , but as these are something that I'd love to see in BB or in buzzer-manager (and they're nowhere to be found), it would be very cool to have them available on HGL. It's truly unfortunate they don't just jump in to the table, and it's not a job to overtake when you're for instance tired... last thing I want to do is provide completely inaccurate statistics.
But I also would like to hear from other managers how important/interesting they find stats?

Last edited by Wagner at 4/15/2025 7:13:43 PM