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Subscribe to our Newsletter10 weeks down and 4 left to go. Two weeks ago Orange had the difficult task of playing 2 games within 3 days and came out victorious in both contests. Last week the Black team did the same. This week it was Green's turn to see if they could secure two victories and build some momentum heading into the home stretch of the season. Unfortunately luck (and the officials) were not on Green's side as they fell just short of keeping the streak alive of teams winning both games in the same week...
(Luck was clearly on Black's side on this crazy deflection)
Black 68 - Green 61 (OT): As usual, Green was playing shorthanded in this contest as they were missing Adam Bendik, Andrew Merel and Seth Niessen while Black was missing Drew Mandelbaum. Despite Green playing with just 5 guys, they came out of the gate on fire while Black struggled to make many shots. Team captain Pete Strauss drilled 3 first half three-pointers (4 for the game en route to 14 points) to help Green build the early lead which grew to as many as 10 points (25-15) with 8:34 left in the first half. Dan Amsellem also surprisingly got in on the three-point shooting though it was his domination on the glass that really stood out (10 points and 21 rebounds)
(It actually looks like they drew up an inbound play for Dan to take a three though Siri clearly doesn't think the shot has a prayer of going in the way he runs for the rebound)
In the final 10 minutes of the first half, Black gradually cut into the lead and eventually managed to take a 2-point (34-32) lead into halftime on this controversial three-pointer by Siri which clearly came after the buzzer:
Black took advantage of the momentum gained from this shot and used it to build a second half lead of 6 points. Black was led by league-leading scorer Siri Carpien (19 points, 10 rebs, 4 assists), followed by TJ Farrell's 16 points (which also matched the number of three-pointers he attempted 4/16) and Damian Jackson added yet another double-double (14 points/13 rebs). But Black also got clutch baskets from David Steinbruck (8 points), Alex Fisher (5 points) and Gary Levine (6 points). Green continued to battle in this contest and managed to take their first lead of the second half at 53-52 with 4:33 remaining. The teams would trade baskets with Black building a 3-point lead with 40 seconds remaining. Here was the crucial play to tie the game up and send it to overtime:
(Goody waving his arms just begging for the ball and Jordan Perlmutter finding him with Goody hitting the clutch game-tying three)
Siri missed the ensuing game-winning attempt and the game went to overtime where Green finally ran out of gas and suffered the 68-61 defeat. Josh Goodhart scored 12 points in the contest while Green was led in scoring by Jordan Perlmutter though it was achieved on 7/24 shooting. The win (5th in a row for Black) brought Black's record to 9-3 while the loss dropped Green temporarily to 2-9.
Black vs Green Highlights 2/3/2025
Grey 62 - Red 48: This was clearly the marquee matchup of the week pitting the top two teams in the standings. These two teams last met in the first game of the season, where Grey squeaked out a 1-point win. Unfortunately for Red, they were missing Colin Neff for this contest but for good reason...a new Neff was welcomed to the world (Lyla Juliet Neff, weighing in at a whopping 9 lbs, 5 oz). Congrats to Colin and the rest of the Neff family. Grey came out of the gates determined to make a statement and opened an early 13-2 lead including back-to-back baskets by Matt Ceccarelli (14 points) to start the game. But if anyone thought that Red would be phased by the quick start, the 16-5 run by Red answered any doubts and tied the score at 18 apiece. Red would eventually take a 22-20 lead but that would be their only lead all game. Grey answered with back-to-back threes by Matt Ceccarelli and Ed Seiden followed by a steal leading to an and-1 by Shamar Mason leading to a 30-24 halftime lead for Grey.
Shamar led all scorers in this contest with 21 points, getting it done both in the lane as well as hitting 3 treys. Red used a zone defense to try and throw Grey out of their comfort zone which worked for a little while. But as Grey began finding the creases in the zone thanks to lots of quick ball movement and some key shots by notorious zone-killer Mike Korn, Grey really found their groove in the second half. Korn finished with 13 points. Grey opened up a 10-point lead in the second half but Red continued to show why they are so tough and cut the lead to 5 points at 50-45. Red was led by Ben Carr (18 points) and Adam Hynes (14 points) but defensive stalwart Mike Hughes really made Adam work for every basket. After cutting the lead to 5, Grey went on a 8-0 run to extend the lead to 58-45 which eventually resulted in a 14-point win. Notably for Grey, they hit 10/13 FTs in the final 6 minutes which has often been a problem for them late in games. And if there was one stat that stood out in this game it was three-point shooting, where Grey shot 7/13 while Red shot 2/13. The win moved Grey into first place in the standings at 8-2 while the loss dropped Red to 9-3 and in a tie with Black for second place (league tie-breakers and the playoff format will be discussed later).
Grey vs Red Highlights 2/3/2025
Green 60 - Gold 50: Two days later and Green was right back at it. They came so close to pulling off the upset against Black two days prior with just 5 guys that they decided the way to get it done was to play with just 4 guys for the first 15 minutes of the game (questionable strategy but I guess whatever works). Green began the game with Adam Bendik, Josh Goodhart, Dan Amsellem and scappy/energy-guy fill-in Mike Ruccio. After Ruccio's performance in this game it's just a matter of time before Pete tells me he's been added to the Green roster. Pete Strauss did show up with 9:00 left in the first half. Like Green Captain, Pete Strauss, the Gold captain, Bryan Minasian, also showed up with 9:00 remaining in the first half (it's nice when captains work together for the benefit of the league). Prior to Bryan's arrival, Gold had just 5 guys as they were missing Steve Bachman and Daniel Lantz (plus Michael "neighbor" Huberman was at less than 100% coming back from injury). You'd think the first 15 minutes playing 5 on 4 would've really benefitted the Gold squad but Green had other ideas. Even with one free defender Gold seemed to have no answers for big Dan Amsellem on the defensive end as he continually drove early in the game with impressive finishes at the hoop.
Dan flirted with a triple double and finished the game with 14 points, 22 rebounds and 7 assists. Bendik, while still not 100%, is slowly reminding the league of how dominant his game is, whether it was drilling threes or backing down his defender and amassing a game-high 21 points. One of the highlights of the game was watching Bendik and Andre go at it throughout the game with neither player backing down. Andre finished with 9 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists and 5 steals (leading the league in total steals). By the time Pete entered the game with 8:54 left in the half, giving Green five players, Green maintained a 21-17 lead. That lead would grow to 28-20 before Gold went on a quick 5-0 run to close out the half with the score at 28-25 in favor of Green. Jake Granoff led Gold in scoring with 14 points while Jason Narod added 13 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists. It was a quiet game for Huberman as he clearly didn't look like himself physically (only 5 points and 1/10 from deep). Gold really struggled with their 3-point shooting as the team collectively made just 6 of 30 attempts (20% for those unable to do the quick math). Gold did come out in the second half looking like a different team early, building on the 5-0 run to close out the half by scoring 4 more unanswered points to give them a 29-28 lead. But that would be the last time they would lead in this contest as that was answered by an 11-2 run by Green which brought the score to 39-31. Mike Ruccio, not normally known as a big scorer, made 7 of 8 shots and finished with 16 points of his own. For Gold this is a game tape that they should burn and pretend like it never happened and just move on. The loss dropped Gold to 2-9 while the win moved Green to 3-9 and a half game above the standings cellar.
Green vs Gold Highlights 2/5/2025
Orange 58 - Blue 48: (stats not yet done for this game so I will adjust the write-up after they are done) The final game of week 10 got underway with both teams making use of competing layup lines, a clear indication that both teams weren't messing around. Orange was without their big man, Matt Birnbach while Blue was missing Erez Liebermann. This game was really tight until the final 3:00 of the first half with the lead never growing larger than 4 points. It was a very balanced scoring effort for Orange with all players getting in on the scoring including this impressive pass by Alex Schosheim to David Laub for the finish (who knew Alex had this kind of court vision):
For Blue, it was a lot of Jon Ackerman offensively in the first half, supplemented by Adam Driansky and Phil Romero. Jon was drilling threes as well as finding creases in the defense to drive to the basket. The game seemed to turn in the final three minutes of the half when Orange stretched a 2-point lead to 8 thanks to two three-pointers by Rory Schulman and another by Michael Gerstein. Ackerman countered with a runner in the lane to cut the lead to 6 with just 7 seconds left in the half but Gerstein closed out the half with a beautiful pass to Ben Huber for a layup as time expired in the half leaving Orange with a 32-24 lead.
Rory Schulman, Michael Gerstein and Jake Lillie led the scoring effort for Orange in this game. Orange built their lead to double digits on several occassions in the second half only to see Blue bounce back and cut the lead to as few as 4 with around 10:00 remaining. But it would be too little too late and Orange went on to secure the 10-point win and improved their record to 7-5 on the season. Blue dropped to 2-9 and in a last place tie with Gold.
Orange vs Blue Highlights 2/5/2025
And this seems like a good place to segue into the playoffs as well as the tiebreakers...
Here is the playoff format:
#1 Seed - First round bye in the playoffs
#2 vs #7
#3 vs #6
#4 vs #5
These three games with be divided up between Monday March 10th and Wednesday March 12th (with the higher seeds given priority to decide which day/time)
Semi-finals: (to be played Monday March 17th)
#1 vs winner of #4/#5
#2/#7 winner vs #3/#6 winner
Finals: (to be played Wednesday March 19th)
Winner of the two games above
Tiebreakers:
If two teams are tied for the same seed, the first tiebreaker will be head-to-head. Some teams play each other 3 times so one team will have the head-to-head edge. If the tied teams only played twice and split those two games, then it will go to point differential in those head-to-head matchups
If three teams are tied for the same seed, the first tiebreaker will be head-to-head amongst the three teams. If it's still tied at that point then it'll be point differential amongst the three teams
The week ahead:
Green vs Blue (2/10)
Grey vs Orange (2/10)
Gold vs Blue (2/12)
Red vs Black (2/12)
I'm going to hold off on posting the stat leaders for this week because not every game has been entered yet. Good luck to everyone this week
