THE DREAM LEAGUE
National Basketball Tournaments
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2005_SF Gold Rush Basketball Tournament (Competitive) |
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 Last Updated: 12/15 9:00PM PST (James Love)Nine Teams Set to do Battle OAKLAND, CA -- 9 of the 35 teams playing in our 4 divisions this weekend will be in the Competitive division. 7 of the 9 teams in this division are teams that have tinkered with core rosters from our AL division season from Fall/Winter 2005. Pools and Brackets  The field of nine is divided into 3 pools: U, V, and W. Teams were placed in each pool primarily according to scheduling issues and logistics. Likewise, the pools were not really based on any subjective or objective ranking of teams. Each team will play 2 games in pool play. At the end of pool play but still on Saturday, teams ranked 6th thru 9th will square off for one wild-card spot to advance to Sunday along with the top 5 teams. The rankings after pool play will be determined by the standard Dream League and NFL-adopted tiebreaker rules: (a) win-loss percentage, (b) head-to-head matchups, (c) record against common opponents, (d) strength-of-victory which is defined as point differential in games won, (e) point differential in all games won or lost, and (f) coin flip. Please note that tiebreakers (a) thru (c) will likely not provide any solutions due to the pool play separations. However, any team that forfeits will automatically be ranked lowest.We needed to eliminate all but 6 teams for Sunday because our original posting of the tourney about 2 months ago promised that we'd be done by 4pm on Sunday. This was before we lost a great many resources in gyms, then we forgot to update that timeframe. Naturally, some teams from out of town booked flights according to the 4pm timeframe. Therefore, we can only accommodate 6 teams on Sunday if we are to finish by 4pm. The "Final Six" tiered bracket gives the #1 and #2 seeds a bye until the Final Four. The seeds will be determined by the aforementioned tiebreakers, with the exception of the #6 (aka wild-card) team, which would have a skewed ranking because they would be 2-0 after the two elimination games against the other bottom teams. Check out the Road to the Gold Rush section for a better understanding of how the weekend will unfold. Venues The tourney will be primarily held in Oakland. This was as advertised: due to capacity issues in SF. There's good and bad for any gym ranging from "rinky-dink" (good: cheap, bad: smaller than regulation size) to "world class arena" (good: playing where the pros play, bad: need to be a millionaire to afford it). Dream League prides itself on finding venues somewhere between "affordable" and "regulation size". So here's the good and bad of our venues. Scroll down to the Schedule Grid and click on the gym name for directions. OCHS -- Only one game is scheduled here and it's Ballerz Inc. vs the Laggers on Friday night. Good: Newest public high-school gym in SF, best scoreboard including shotclock among other SF gyms in tourney, ample parking when rear gate is open (should be open during tourney), Mexican food places 1-2 blocks away. Bad: New glass backboards won't have been installed yet by tourney time, nearby street parking necessary when gate is closed, not-so-great neighborhoods 3-5 blocks away. When parking in the lot, please enter from Harrison St and park PERPENDICULAR to the gates! EDMS -- Only one game is scheduled here and it's Hoopsters at SF City on Friday night. Good: Safe neighborhood, ample street parking. Bad: Scoreboard is "minimal" (only shows time, score, and quarter) and lighting in the gym is just barely adequate. BRRC -- This is actually the first time we're having Dream League games here. Good: High-quality venue also used for major AAU tournaments, nice scoreboard, ok neighborhood, parking lot. Bad: Must enter street from Telegraph (Shattuck blocked off). TFRC -- This is also the first time we're having Dream League games here. Good: Easy directions. Bad: Not the best neighborhood -- do not leave valuables showing in vehicle. IJRC -- Formerly known as IJCC (should have been IJRC this whole time!). Good: Parking lot, shotclocks, away from bad neighborhoods. Bad: Floor not the best, parking lot sometimes full with softball attendees, scoreboard is only on one side, still have to bring or conceal valuables in car just in case. Why use separate gyms? First off, we'd rather be using separate gyms instead of one complex that has multiple (smaller) gyms right next to each other. This is for basketball "purists", because in multiplexes you'll be in situations where you can hear a ref's whistle or a buzzer even though it is coming from the other court. So that's why we use separate gyms. We usually give at least 1 hour to get from Point A to Point B. Will your team be shuffling between gyms on the same day? The only teams that might be shuffling from gym to gym on the same day is Pool W (Laggers, Ballerz Inc, Jets/Vipers) on Sunday. Directions from TFRC to BRRC (Pool W only, Saturday -- Enter 59th St from Telegraph, not Shattuck!) Road to the Gold Rush FRIDAY NIGHT -- The tourney actually kicks off Friday night with local teams the Laggers squaring off against Ballerz Inc at OCHS and the Hoopsters against SF City at EDMS. These four teams were the only ones able to play on Friday night. SATURDAY -- All games are in Oakland. The Runnin' Rebels and Milpitas Fastbreak start things off at 10am. Quite frankly, they did not get preferential treatment on the tipoff due to delayed team entry payments. Likewise, the teams that did get their payments in on time mostly got what preferences they asked for. Moving on down the schedule grid to the two games at TFRC, the Jets/Vipers were placed here due to their tipoff time requirements. TFRC is a lower-quality gym than BRRC and whichever teams between the Jets/Vipers, Ballerz Inc, and the Laggers do not finish 2-0 should expect to drive up to BRRC for the elimination games. By 3:00pm at the end of the CCAA vs Runnin' Rebels game, we'll work on the rankings and figure out which teams represent the Bottom 4. Those four will then play elimination games to determine the wild-card for Sunday. So if you finished 1-1 after pool play, your captain should probably call the division director (contact info to follow later this week) or better yet just head on over to BRRC, most definitely if you finished 0-2. #9 vs #6 is at 5pm and #8 vs #7 is at 6pm. Luckily, we're able to place an INT/REC division game at 7pm, giving the winner of the 6pm game one hour to rest. In any event, the six teams that advance to Sunday will need to call the commish at around 10pm -- after the 8pm game has completed -- and find out their seeds and what time they are playing on Sunday. SUNDAY -- We're back to the old Dream League stomping grounds at IJRC to close out the tourney. Here's why the teams need to call the commish on Saturday at around 10pm. #6 vs #3 and #5 vs #4 are slated in the opening round, but it remains to be seen which pair will play at 10am as opposed to 11am. This is because we want to avoid repeating the matchups from pool play, therefore we very well could have #6 vs #4 and #5 vs #3 and, by the same token, #1 vs the winner of #6 vs #3 instead of the usual winner of #5 vs #4, and so forth. Opposite sides of the bracket take turns with games until after the 1pm game. It wouldn't be fair to have the winner of 1pm immediately play in the championship at 2pm, therefore we've scheduled dead/rest time from 2-3pm. The championship game will then commence at exactly 3pm, so be sure to get back to the gym with plenty of time to spare. Team Profiles Ballerz Inc/Rayguns: A combo squad of last season's commish's AL-Elite and previous NL hash jobs, the morphing perhaps has come to completion. Most notable is SG Alvin Vinoya, who played on the 4th-place SJ Ballers in the Summer Vegas tourney. He can catch fire from downtown. He has a supporting cast in former Ballerz Inc players PG Errol Mercado and SF defensive specialist Tony Cheng, with Rayguns 6'1" C Yih-Wei Chien, 6'1" PF Donnell Scobie, and another bomber in SG Rob Rius. CCAA: no information. SF Hoopsters: PG and captain Greg Ong is fresh off a Dream League season championship from a lower division and hopes to parlay that into more. This team is becoming a veteran of tournaments and should be a force to be reckoned with, esp. with the versatile guard Charles Appah. There are many others listed on the roster so we won't know the core group until later. Jets/Vipers: no information. Laggers: At first, it was a reiteration of last season's AL-Elite Sienna Bombers, but a few key pieces fell thru, so captain Sean Nakano believes he has reloaded with appropriate personnel. Roster unknown, but co-captain and 6'2" C Dave Tom also returns. Milpitas Fastbreak: Fared well in their first foray into Dream League's AL-Elite division last season. The team revolves around PG Sam Araya and leading scorer 6'2" PF Russell Lopez. They have a solid supporting cast. Runnin' Rebels: No, not the Rebs from Dream League's NL (also playing in the Elite Invitational of this tourney). These are the Rebs from San Jose. Aside from captain SG Francis Dagumboy and SF Loren Zapanta, we don't have info on their roster yet, but they are tourney vets. SF City: Perhaps the youngest team in the field, led by sharpshooter SG Frank Song, who led the AL-Premier in scoring last season. Mike Salamin rejoins him in the backcourt and the two have collected a squad of true daiper dandies. To start the tournament career at this level says volumes about their potential. Sacramento Warlords: A new iteration of last season's Mix, which struggled in its debut in the AL-Premier. Captain SF Branden Harrell has a few roster moves from Sac in the works, so we hope to have more info shortly. Schedule Grid (scroll down as necessary) | ||||||||||||