Winter 2012: 5v5 Draft League Champs: Will Smith’s Breffmints

Breffmints win inaugural 5v5 Draft League Title
Will Smith's Breffmints 61 Get Lubed Up 55

And just like that, it\'s over.

The 5v5 Draft league has been a lot of fun, at least for me, and I know that Will Smith\'s Breffmints ended the season the way they wanted to last night. There\'s so much I want to cover that this thing is going to be long and rambling, so let\'s get to it! 

We don\'t always get the best two teams in the league into the Finals, but we did this season as Lubed Up was the clear #2 by the end. It helps to have both good teamwork and the league MVP on your side.

The team came out pretty fired up. You\'d expect that in the Finals I guess. Talanian had a couple early buckets and Colon was getting to the basket at will. They were down 14-13 early though, and that\'d because Debari stepped his game up. In his first Finals appearance since he joined CAC Basketball 4 seasons ago, Drew wasn\'t going to let this chance at a title slip away without making an impact. He nailed 2 attempts from deep early and the way he was shooting, I expected him to keep hoisting shots. 

A quick 9-0 run thanks to work on the O glass by Fine and Ian gave the Mints a 23-13 lead with 9 minutes to go in the first half. I knew the game wasn\'t over, but Lubed Up would have to do some hard work to claw back into it.

Thankfully they had Colin and Dias coming off the bench to nail a couple 3s before halftime. As the game started to get called a little tighter, the scoring slowed and points were harder to come by. That\'s why getting 3 on 1 possesion was key! Lubed Up trailed 26-28 at the break, using a 13-5 \'run\' to end the first half that spanned 9 minutes. Yea, the scoring slowed considerably. 

Colon was unstoppable in the second half when he drove to the hoop or used that step-back-off-the-glass-for-2 move of his. His points started adding up quickly. Despite all of them, and there were a lot, Drew\'s 4th three of the game at the 14 minute mark re-established the Mints double digit lead. So many extra possessions. Nick flashed some nice post moves, which you should see in the video, that we haven\'t seen all season long. See, reasons like that are why you win the Tibbs\' Award! With Dave Fine continuing his outstanding playoff play (9 points, 13 boards a game!) the Mints were able to take advantage of their 14 O boards. Everyone chipped in, even Ian, who probably wants to forget everything about this game except the fact that they won.

Still, Colon kept it close. When Powell was hurt with 5 minutes left and his team clinging to a 6 point lead, I thought things would get dicey. They did.

The last 3 minutes of the game were a parade to the free throw line. Matty, the janitor and I all thought that maybe it was a little early to be fouling and sending guys to the line in a 4 point game. Apparently Lubed Up\'s scouting reports are even better than mine though. After starting the game 4 for 6 from the charity stripe (really good for them!) the Mints started to feel the pressure and froze up. 

Each possession started to blur together. Lubed Up would miss a 3 (why weren\'t they going for 2s at that point?!?) and the Mints would miss at least one of their free throw attempts. Not a single time did they hit 2 in one trip to the line. The misses started piling up and I thought at some point Lubed Up would steal this game. They were down 55-52 with a 1:30 left. The Mints would go on to shoot 16 more free throws (making just 5) but Lubed UP was never able to hit that big shot to tie the game up.

Lubed Up couldn\'t take advantage of the Mints shooting just 14-35 from the charity stripe in this one, and definitely let the game slip away

The Mints finish the season with an unofficial record for the worst free throw shooting champ of all time. After this abysmal, let me say it again FOURTEEN for THIRTY-FIVE \'performance\', they finish the season shooing 84 of 183. That\'s 45.9% for the season! Yea that\'s bad, but I\'m pretty sure they don\'t care at this point. 

There was no bubbly to pop, but there should have been.

Congrats to all the teams on a great first season, there are still a couple spots open for the next season in the Draft Leagues if you want to get involved again. Just shoot me an email to CACBasketball@gmail.com

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