Week 4 Recap

Good morning everyone, 

Happy Thursday! 

Weekly Encouragement: 

Something I have always liked about this league is that Kevin has encouraged the
captains to make efforts to ensure their team members get minutes and shot
attempts. Periodically throughout the year, he will identify the players in the
league with the lowest number of shot attempts to ensure that we, as captains,
increase our efforts to include them more if it is needed. 

To me, this highlights one of the great things about this league. It continues
to remain competitive year after year; however, it also attempts to provide
opportunities for those who might not be as skilled and still want to
enjoy playing the game of basketball. I think the evidence for this is that we
are in our 12th season, with many of us returning year after year. 

For many who have played in other basketball leagues, this sort of mentality is
often not the case. Minutes and shot attempts are solely based on the athlete’s
level of skill. This can be extremely frustrating for those involved. This is
not the type of league we want. As Kevin often says, there are no scouts at our
games. We are not playing for scholarships or roster spots here. So why don’t we
look to get a teammate involved, even if we might feel that we have a better
chance of scoring? 

Now watch any game in our league, and I think you’ll see that we are still
competitive and want to win. I think we do a great job (although not perfectly)
at managing the balance between being competitive while also including and
encouraging the participation of everyone. This type of culture starts from the
top, as Kevin has always and continues to emphasize and encourage this. 

My challenge for us this week is for each of us to reflect on how much we are
thinking of our teammates and making efforts to include them, even those not as
skilled, versus our focus on winning a game, where again there are no scouts. 

Reminds me of Luke 6:31 “And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to
them”. How do you want to be treated as a teammate? How can you do that for
others for the remainder of this season? 

Week 5 Schedule (3/29):
* 5:30 pm: Matt and the Missed Opportunities vs. Balling for God (Justin Time:
Brent Pellens, Karsen Butler, Garrett Holloway) 
* 6:30 pm: Justin Time vs. Goon Squad (Balling for God: Juan Cardenas, Timothy
Owens, Ethan Sewell)
* 7:30 pm: Cloudy with a Chance of Airballs vs. Noah’s Arc (Goon Squad: Quintan
Coleman, Tobias Coleman, Collin Moffatt)

Weekly Shoutouts:
* Our league’s leading scorer for this week was Josh Hefferan with 32 points.
Ryno Moore followed close behind him with 29 points, along with Alec Frank,
who put up 26. 
* We had two assist leaders for the week. Both Collin Moffatt and Brandon
Porras embodied “sharing is caring” by dishing out 10 assists each for their
teams. Also, according to the league emperor, our assists as a league have
gone up 67% over the first 3 weeks so good job everyone.
* Ryno Moore led the league in rebounds this week to earn himself a
double-double.  Ryno grabbed 14 boards. Other high performers in the
rebounding category were Noah Andrade and Timothy Johnson, who had 11
rebounds apiece.
* Sawyer McKenzie and Timothy Johnson each threw a block party in their
head-to-head match-up, denying 4 shots each. 

Weekly Recap: 
* Tyler’s Heroes and Balling for God both performed well in a game that sure
was a crowd-pleaser. The second half was full of lead changes as Ryno Moore
and Alec Frank attempted to lead their teams to a win. Ryno Moore put up a
valiant effort with an impressive overall stat line, but could not overcome
Tyler’s Heroes team effort, led by Alec Frank, along with notable
contributions from Brandon Porras and Tyler Bernth. The absence of the Sewell
brothers for Balling for God may have been the deciding factor. Final score
69-61. 
* Game two did not provide quite the thrill of game one as Goon Squad coasted
to an easy victory over Cloudy with a Chance of Airballs. The offense of Goon
Squad was clicking on all cylinders as they got off to an early lead and
never looked back. All 8 players for Goon Squad got on the scoreboard in the
easy victory. Josh Hefferan put up a valiant effort to attempt to keep his
team in the game, but ultimately could not hang with the highly efficient
offense of Goon Squad. Final score 82-58.
* Noah’s Arc appears to be righting the ship as they got their first win of the
season this week. Aaron Slack looked like his pre-dad self on the court,
despite telling reporters prior to the game that he would only be able to go
at “about 50%.” The defense of Noah’s Arc proved the deciding factor as they
held the duo of Timothy Johnson and Joey Zoeller to 22 points between the two
of them. The size of Noah’s Arc gave Matt and the Missed Opportunities a lot
of trouble this week and could continue to prove a headache for teams if
Noah’s Arc continues to perform like Sunday. Final score 60-35. 

—
Jacob Brummett | League Scribe
Crossroads Basketball League
www.ballerstats.com [http://www.ballerstats.com/]