-By: Darius Majd -
Sunday (1/30) saw the arrival of a new top team after the former number one Mavericks couldn’t keep up their game on the Middlesex court. Here’s a look at the new YMCA House Basketball standings.
1. Lakers (6-0); LW: 2 – The Lakers finally take the top spot this week after being stuck at number 2 for most of the season. They are the only remaining undefeated team, they have the best point differential in the league, and they have two of the best scorers in the league in juniors Bobby Weaver (pictured) and St Lukes’ junior Luke Osherow. No team passes better than the Lakers who can both penetrate defenses and bury teams from beyond the arc. This week’s victim, the winless Trailblazers, had their hands full with the Lakers’ athleticism, and the new top dogs cruised to a 67-45 win. With the much-anticipated match up with the Mavericks in the last game of the season cancelled (to the outrage of house basketball enthusiasts everywhere), expect the Lakers to win out and lock up the top seed next week.
2. Mavericks (5-1); LW: 1 – The Mavericks finally succumbed to the pressure of the hype, getting dominated up and down the court in the second half against the Spurs in a 52-37 loss. The Mavericks jumped out to an 8-0 lead thanks to the sharp play of senior Reid Evanich, who showed touch in making several close to mid-range shots in the early going. Unfortunately, the rest of the team was not nearly as accurate from the field. Usually hot-shooting seniors Ricky Miller and Parker Lange created several opportunities for themselves, but just could not get their shots to drop. Senior Tyler Pruden was outnumbered and outmanned in the paint by the Spurs’ physical big men, and the Mavericks’ transition defense was once again a big weakness in the second half. The only player outside of Evanich to play even close to their usual level was senior Sam Nelson, and despite a flurry of late threes, this was far from his best game either. Hopefully the Mavericks can learn from this wake-up call and emerge stronger going into the playoffs.
3. Spurs (4-2); LW: 3 – The Spurs got off to a slow start once again after senior catalysts Ben Preston and Graham Maybell were held up in the opening minutes of the game; just three minutes in, the Spurs were already down 8-0 to the Mavericks without their best players on the court. But after the duo subbed into the game, things changed in a hurry. The team rallied to tie the game at the half, and then provided the shock of the season in the second half by hammering the wire-to-wire league favorites. Seniors Andrew Hurn and Ben Lowden were great on the boards, and had several put-backs to provide additional scoring production behind Preston. On defense, seniors Darius Majd and Peter Barston came up with big steals and flood the Mavericks passing lanes, helping to hold the Mavericks 23 points below their league-high 60 points per game average despite the absence of senior point guard Alex “Elmo” McGuire (after the slow start in the opening three minutes, the Spurs defense actually held the Mavericks below half of their season average). Despite the lack of a consistent second scoring, the Spurs look like a strong playoff contender because of great rebounding and defense.
4. Thunder (4-2); LW: 5 – The Thunder are one of only four teams above .500 – no small feat in such a competitive league. Still, this team certainly has room to improve its stock because all four wins come against the bottom four teams in the league. One reason to believe that this team can compete is that they lost by one to the high-scoring Mavericks, and were the only team to hold them below 60 points entering this week (they lost 48-47). More importantly, the Thunder are led by the league’s leading scorer, junior Tony Britton, whom many house experts believe would win a hypothetical MVP award. The junior laden supporting cast isn’t lacking either, thanks to the play of Cal Kevorkian, Bryan Previte, Jack Rehm, and Elliott Helgans. This team is somewhat of a wildcard, and wildcards tend to step up during the house playoffs.
5. Celtics (3-3); LW: 6 – The Celtics finally climbed to .500 thanks to the late game heroics of junior Gabe “Wade” Bottazzi, who hit a clutch three pointer in the final seconds to carry his team to a 59-56 victory over the luckless Timberwolves. This team is starting to peak, after dropping its first two games to the top two teams. Since then, the Celtics have beaten the Spurs, and their only blemish in a current 3-1 run is a 31-30 loss to the Nuggets, without unstoppable senior force Eric Parnon. Size and senior leadership are the main strengths of this team. Throw in the coaching intangibles of house finals mainstay Coach Rogers, and this team could finally be the Celtics team that gets over the hump.
6. Nuggets (3-3); LW: 4 – A scoring mix-up led me to over-rank the Nuggets last week, as I believed that they had won their earlier match up with the Timberwolves 62-34, not lost it. The switch paints a dramatically different story for this team, who are simply part of a large middle-tier group of teams that could go deep in the playoffs. The Nuggets are certainly capable of reaching the finals, with competitive losses to the Mavericks and Spurs, and wins over the Celtics and Thunder. But that blowout loss to the Timerwolves is hard to get past, and this week’s 46-43 win over the Suns doesn’t exactly exude dominance. Having said that, every senior Max Reyes-led house team has made it at least to the semi-finals in the playoffs, so the Nuggets should like their chances of breaking through in the postseason.
7. Timberwolves (2-4); LW: 8 – As with the Nuggets, the Timberwolves have an entirely new image thanks to the correction of the final score. That 62-34 victory is among the most impressive throughout the league this year. The Timberwolves only have one other win – against the last-place Trailblazers – but they also only have one bad loss (to the first-place Lakers). In between, the Timberwolves have not been able to catch a break losing, their other three games by a combined seven points, after Sunday’s heartbreaking 59-56 loss to the Celtics. Even though this team lost to the Suns in overtime, their overall profile is slightly better, and for most of that game the Timberwolves looked like the better team before an own-basket sparked a late-game collapse.
8. Suns (2-4); LW: 7 – The Suns looked respectable in a 46-43 loss to the Nuggets. Despite only claiming an ugly win over the Timberwolves and another win over the winless Trailblazers, the Suns have played some pretty good basketball after early blowout losses to the Thunder and the Mavericks; the 39-32 loss to the undefeated Lakers is one of the better results any team has had against them this season. The Suns’ strength is their backcourt, with skilled guards Thomas Carruthers (junior) and Tommy Farren (senior). Senior Dan Pidgeon is a nice additional scoring threat. While there aren’t too many proven scorers on this team, strong ball handling is keeping them in contention.
9. Rockets (1-5); LW: 9 – The Rockets’ poor defense hurt them again in a 53-39 loss to the Thunder. I stated last week that the Rockets were going to need their senior big men were going to have to step up, and one of them did; senior Zach Miller had a career-high 12 points, and dominated the boards in a losing effort. If the rest of the team can maximize their potential like Zach, then the Rockets might churn out some interesting results. But until this team stops relying on their inconsistent 3-point shooting, expect more of the same.
10. Trailblazers (0-6); LW: 10 – Although they gave up 67 points, the Trailblazers have some long-awaited reasons to be optimistic in the aftermath of their 67-45 loss to the Lakers. Despite being the victims of a huge mismatch on paper, the Trailblazers put up far more points on the Lakers vaunted defense than any other team had; before Sunday, the most points the Lakers had allowed in a game was 34, in Week 1. Russell Palmer was solid as usual, but the Trailblazers got an unexpected spark in the frontcourt from senior Andrew Noujaim, who muscled his way through Lakers defenders. Senior Jarrett Gatling used his athleticism to push the tempo on offense and defense, and this helped the Trailblazers to go on a mini-run in the closing minutes of the game. Nobody is giving this team much of a chance in the playoffs, but last year’s last-place team came out of nowhere to beat the second seed in the last game of the regular season, and push the eventual champions in the playoffs, so don’t count this group out just yet.
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