Fall 2016: B1 5v5 League Champs: Make A Swish Foundation

Championship Preview
Any Given Wednesday 61 Make A Swish Foundation 63

Good afternoon gentleman. Here we have it. The clash of titans. The wire to wire number one seed Water Bears taking on last season’s champ Make a Swish Foundation. 

The Bears have been impressive throughout. They’ve played a fun, disciplined, and heady style of basketball.  They’ve been challenged in the closing weeks but a 20+ victory over ACC in the semis has them reaching back to their mid season streak of hot play that was reminiscent to the Seattle Supersonics of yesteryear and their 14 game winning steak in 96’. 

The Bear’s have seemed like the team all year. Sam King has been magnificent. And Dave Opp just turned in his best game of the season leaving his finger prints all over the box score. He scored a season high 21 pts with a game high 5 assists. He has deferred all season but when he’s taking his fair share of shots he can be another difference maker. Him being the the 6th leading scorer on the team is scary.

Make a Swish has also been playing some great team ball. They came into the playoffs on a 3 game win steak and have continued that success with a dramatic comeback OT win against AGW. I spoke last week about the importance of Pykkonen and Ohara’s production on the offensive end has been. They both were able to find ways to get back in double digits. These guys are both very capable of hitting tough shots. The type of guys that help win playoff games. 

But the big question is the once again is the status of Scott Blumenthal. Turning his efforts to Coaching the last few weeks he still has yet to disclose his IR so I’ll have to assume he is out.

So…….

Brandon Connolly may have only scored 13 points. But he basically scored on ever post touch. The Bears have some guys inside that can deny the ball in the post. But they will have to work around front to keep him off the offensive glass. Both are good rebounding teams. But both will have to emphasize boxing out with the amount of good offensive rebounders in this game. Zachey Kliger and Dave Opp are both at the top of the league in the amount of possession extending offensive boards from guard spot. And Dium Salio can rebound from any possition on the floor.

As intriguing as a number of the individual matchups are this is more so a matchup of strengths. The Water Bears are the best defensive team in the league and the Swish are aptly the number one scoring team. I think we meet in the middle with a hard fought game in upper 60’s.

It is the holiday party seaon at work so I’ll hold my prediction till after I see who is in lay up lines. 

Scores, Box Scores & Write-Ups

Playoff: week 12

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