THE DREAM LEAGUE
Asian American / Open Basketball Leagues
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2006_Summer AL-Elite (SF/Oakland) |
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| Up-to-date as of: 10/6 8:00AM (10/8 Bird's Eye View) Frisco's Finest Have Upper Hand on Prodigies Bird's eye view of schedule Playoff Brackets OCTOBER 6, 2006 -- Frisco's Finest held off O.E. while the Prodigies knocked off the Oakland Rams to end up with a big vs small matchup in the championship. David will have to win two straight to seize the championship away from Goliath's hands.
Goliath is obviously the 10-1 Frisco's Finest, which has 6'7" John Goya anchoring the middle. Suffice it to say, he causes a lot of problems. The Prodigies, meanwhile, have to go with small ball. Their best players are 5'9". That would be Barry Lee and Sean Caiola, who both play a sort of point-shooting guard role. To counter the effect of Goya, Lee and Caiola have to make things happen by penetrating the lane. Forwards like Lance Whitted have to be ready for dimes and put them in before Goya can catch up. The Prodigies must also play good defense on the reliable Frisco perimeter, headlined by Rob Shintaku's sharpshooting from downtown. It's a little early to be looking ahead, but with Frisco's cruising through the AL-Elite season and even if somehow the 5-5 Prodigies pull off a David vs Goliath upset, with Goya towering over everyone, Frisco's Finest definitely looks like a viable candidate for ascension to the NL. Playoff Matchups for 10/1 SEPTEMBER 28, 2006 (2:00PM) -- The schedule is finalized because it is now on the SCHEDULE/SCORES page. Please see the bird's eye view schedule (link above) for the detailed explanation. SEPTEMBER 28, 2006 (8:00AM) -- We're still finalizing the schedule and it should be up by today (Thu) afternoon. For now, check the bird's eye view (link is above) and the updated playoff brackets. Playoff Matchups for 9/24 SEPTEMBER 19, 2006 -- With so many teams having roster issues this season or simply performing sub-par, we have playoff brackets that couldn't be any more straightforward. First off, E#3 Kurruption sent the W#2 Prodigies to the Losers Bracket with an upset over their long-time cross-bay rivals, dating back to the Prodigies' AL-Premier championship over Kurruption despite Kurruption's forcing of a repeat championship way back when. This, of course, was before the Rodney Campbell and Sean Caiola era. Campbell closed out 9/17's game with a series of free throws while Caiola spent the weekend with family in Vegas, which would also be the undoing of NL's Driven. Meanwhile, E#4 Hinrich Maneuvers put up a rare good fight (other than UHype's late regular season upset) for an opponent of W#1 Frisco's Finest, but it wasn't enough as Frisco extended its dominating record to 8-1. Hinrich's season couldn't be salvaged as it lost its 6th game in a row and got eliminated from the playoffs. Three forfeits contributed to what would have otherwise been a .500 season that started off so promisingly at 3-0 with consecutive wins over the defending champion Runnin' Rebels and the mighty Oakland Rams. W#3 O.E. eliminated last year's champs, the E#3 Runnin' Rebels, even though this season the Rebels had an astounding six players scoring in double-digits. Somehow the return of 6'5" Norman Wang from seasons of injuries couldn't even get the Rebels back to .500. And finally W#4 UHype forfeited its much-anticipated matchup against the E#1 Oakland Rams, which were missing leading scorer Karl Gusner. UHype had a teammate with a birthday bash at the 49ers game, but apparently they must have got an early start to the partying as the team missed their early requested tipoff. The only other option would have been to play late, but other requests for late games prevented that from happening and UHype admitted they might have been too hung over from the Niners game anyways. So for 9/24 we have OE, with its single-elim status. However, OE has a potent lineup of Guy Blightman and Kevin Sagong in the frontcourt along with a slew of strong guards, of which NL veteran Ryan Susanto is surprisingly the only one averaging under double-digits. Kind of scary when a team that could, on paper, be qualified to play in the NL is sitting at 3-5 in the division below. Then there's Frisco's vs Kurruption in which Kurruption will find itself an even heavier underdog than ever before. Finally, the Prodigies are the only team in the Losers Bracket, so they will sit idle and wait for an opponent, which might not arrive until 10/8. One of those rare situations in which they might be rooting for the top seeds to hold form. Which brings us back to the top seeds and the double-elimination status for the .500 teams to begin with. We started off this mini-recap and -preview by saying that a lot of teams never really found a groove, be it with players not showing up regularly and/or not winning on at least a semi-consistent basis. Well, Frisco's and the Rams took care of business and rightfully so, they have been rewarded with double-elimination of which only one other team has (the Prodigies). Even though we all know that the remaining five teams can easily contend on any given weekend and it sure would be nice to see ultra-competitive showdowns between what still remains as one of the strongest AL-Elite fields ever assembled, it would not have been fair to the teams who took care of business to grant all teams double-elimination status. Frisco's, the Rams, and the Prodigies deserve to have a leg up on the competition and they are maximizing those advantages as we speak. Playoff Matchups for 9/17 SEPTEMBER 13, 2006 -- To resolve the 3-way tiebreaker in the East at 3-5, we automatically demoted Hinrich to the E#4 seed because of their 3 forfeits. Then the Rebels beat Kurruption head-to-head, so we have the following: W#4 UHyp at E#1 Rams (Oak) E#3 Kurr at W#2 Prod (SF) E#4 Hinr at W#1 FriF (SF) E#2 Rebs at W#3 OE (SF) One small quirk is that the higher-seed East team, Rebs, will be playing at the lower-seeded equivalent West team, OE. This is because both teams are tied at 3-5 and OE beat the Rebs head-to-head. This is the same scenario as we have seen in determining homecourt in the NBA playoffs. Notes for 8/27 AUGUST 17, 2006 -- Scheduling notes for 8/27... PROD at OE -- Prod needs around 12p-3p, then get to EHSA for AAA-E. OE many players on teams. FRIF at UHYP -- FriF wants late tipoff, 4pm is latest possible at SQHS. HINR at KURR -- Both teams have players on multiple teams. 12:30pm avoids conflicts. REBS at RAMS -- Flexible schedules, only tipoff left over from all other requests. T-SHIRT UPDATE: Superstar kid scorekeeper EJ and Commish spent 4 hours last night sorting out the t-shirts. All t-shirts owed should be passed out by this Sunday at your respective gyms. Please see a scorekeeper. Also, the quantities for the New t-shirts were messed up, so we gave the Circle or Gothic version to those of you whom we think have not been in the league as long as others. Payment Auto-Forfeits as of 8/23 Excerpted from an email sent today to all captains with outstanding payments: YOU WILL ALSO FORFEIT THE ENTIRE PLAYOFFS. THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO PAY. ABSOLUTELY YOUR LAST CHANCE, PERIOD -- NO MORE WAITING ON UNPAID PAYMENTS AFTER 8/27 ANYMORE AND I WILL BE MORE THAN HAPPY TO BE THE BAD GUY AND CUT YOU AND YOUR TEAM OFF. AUGUST 23, 2006 -- We will be calling refs on the spot to ensure payments have been made to ANY SCOREKEEPER prior to tipoff (not after). The following teams are at risk of forfeiting their next game: PRODIGIES: 7 spots paid by Torrent (4), Barry (2), and London. 8th game on 8/27. UHYPE: 7 spots paid by Laurence (2) Chris (2), Brad, Alex, and Virgil. 8th game including the 2 played in AAA-P on 8/27, therefore 1 more spots must be paid before tipoff on 8/27. $6 cash per player for Peninsula gym fee also needed (total: $48), which went up from $5 each since it was not paid before tipoff 8/13. O.E.: 7 spots paid by John, Ricky, Gu Yeun, Kevin, Brian, Alvin, and Joseph Kim. 8th game on 8/27. Team Payments and Preferences (as of 8/11) # LOCALE TIPOFFS TEAM NAME/CAPTAIN STATUS BYE(S) | |||||||