8/22 |
I forgot to thank a couple of people for their participation in the tournament. One is Frank who caught a lot of the action on his camera, and all the college coaches and scouts that came out to enjoy the action as well as the sponsors, without whom their would be no UDC. |
8/21 |
8/18 |
Here are my predictions for all of the playoff games except the Super Biddy and Biddy (because I did not see any of these teams play). For the Girls games Im going with a Riverside vs. Mika championship. Mika is the 2 time defending champs and should handle Next Generatoin easly but got handled by Riverside early in the year. Riverside will blow the Lady Hawks out. In the Midgets game I believe the finals will be Gauchos B vs. Riverside A. Gauchos B will defeat Wake-Eden easely behind the big 3 of Sundiata Gaines, Ronald Ramon and Russell Robinson. Riverside may have a closer game against Riverside B but they will still win by 10-15, setting up a rematch of the 1 point thriller the Gauchos won by in the regular season. In the Junior division my feeling is there will be a rematch of the championship with Riverside playing Riverside. I think Riverside A will win a hard fought battle against Gauchos A unless Kenny Eusey, Isaiah Davis and Ron Wyatt all bring their A game. In the semifinal the Future Stars (Riverside B) will beat Gauchos B by about 10-15 points. In the Senior division the Brooklyn Beasts play Minus and Riverside plays Renaissance. If the Beasts have their whole team the game will not be close but if they are missing a couple of players they will win by a close margin. In the other semi-final Riverside will beat Renaissance but it will be tough and I wouldnt be surprised if Renaissance wins. The College division games are between Riverside and Next Level and Globe and the Sun Devils. Riverside already blew Next Level out and that was when Next Level had Kevin Johnson but now that he is in school Next Level will probably lose by even more. I never got a good looke at the Sun Devils but I did get a good look at Globe so I think Globe will win this but not by a lot. |
Here are my predictions for the championhip games. Riverside will win the girls championship but they won't beat Mika by as much as they did last time. I dont the game will close but Riverside will jump out early and coast the rest of the way and win by 8-10 points. The Midget game will be a classic between Gauchos B and Riverside A. The game will be guards vs. big men and I think the guards will win. As usual Russell, "Yada" and Ronald will have big games and will keep them in the game. But Arturo Dubois and Tyrell Biggs will be able to keep Riverside in it. But the X factor in this game will be Nick Carter. If he can play well on both ends Riverside will win and if he doesnt they wont. I think Nick is a very good player but he will not be able to contend with Ronald or Yada on the defensive end and Yada will be able to shut him down on offense. The Junior championhsip between the Riverside teams should be won by the A team but the B team has better big man. But I think Ricky Soliver, Keydre "Kiki" Clark and Kelvin "Petey" Nelson will be enough to defeat Jason Wingate, Rushid Simmons and Eric Martin. The Senior championship game will be very exciting with the Beasts and Riverside. The Beasts have 3-points super threat Mike Thomas, Malik Haney, John Polance and St. Anthony's Dwayne Lee. Riverside will depend on great guard play from Kason Mims, Rashaan Simmons and Shaheen McNair but they will not win unless Jomo Belfor plays good. Even if does play good the Beasts may still win. In the end I'm taking the Brooklyn Beasts to win the championship in a close hard fought game. The College game may be a blowout if all of the Riverside players are present for the game. But I'm not sure who will be in school and who will be present. If anybody has to be in school it will be Zach Williams, Mike Boynton and Reggie Brown. I think even if these players are not present for the game Riverside will still win a close game. |
8/17 |
In a Junior division game the Brooklyn Bridge and Gauchos B met. The Gauchos got off to a quick start and jumped out to a 16-7 lead, but it would not last. The Bridge would fight back to take a 23-20 lead. The Gauchos would regain the lead and led by 4 at the break behind great play from Sean Banks and Chris Bernard. Banks and Bernard would continue to play well in the second half and with the ejection of Mitchell Beauford spelled the end for the Bridge who fell in this game by 7. Sean Banks ended the game with 31 and Chris Bernard scored 26. Cassius Carpenter scored 22 and he kept the Bridges hopes alive after Beauford fouled out with great 3-point shooting. Da Choz will play Riverside B in the semis at 2:30 on Saturday. In a Senior game Renaissance blew away Spring Valley and will meet Riverside in the semis at 4:00 on Saturday. |
8/16 |
Unfortunately I was not present for the games last night which had to be moved to the Gaucho Gym. But I found out Riverside blewout Next Level 94-69 in the College division, this game was a continuation from Sunday. Kyle Cuffe had a dominating 33 points 16 of which came in the first 12 minutes of the game. Today I was only present for 1 game, which was Gauchos A vs. Holy Cross in the Junior division. I knew from the start the game would be a track meet and I was not dissapointed. Holy Cross played great in the first half and led almost the whole half behind great play from Amil Thomas, Lamar White and crisp passing from Mark Hill. Despite the play of these 3 Holy Cross still trailed by 1 at the half. The second half was completely dominated by da Choz. Kenny Eusey played terrific the entire game to finish with 28, while Donnie McGrath was sidelined in the first half with foul trouble he still managed 16 points, 12 in the second half. The final score of the game was 90-63. Thomas scored 20, White scored 14 and Ryan Ewers added 13 in defeat. The Gauchos will play Riverside A in the Semis at 2:30 on Saturday. In a Senir division game the Wolfpack forefeited to team Minus. The Wolfpack were my favorites to win the championhip. I will make predictions and a regular season report of the happenings at UDC tomorrow. Playoff Schedule, Final Standings |
8/13 |
The first game of the day was a Midget game between Riverside and St. Joeseph's. The game was close for about the first 2 minutes before Riverside went on a 11-0 run to put the game away. The Church ended up winning 70-46 behind 15 points from Rice bound Arturo Dubois. In a Junior game Riverside played or should I say destroyed the Basketeers by a score of 100-52. Four players scored at least 15 points for Riverside led by James Brown with 18. John Jammott and Keydren Clark each scored 16 and Ricky Soliver scored 15. In the Senior division the Sun Devils played the Washington Heights Warriors in a meaningsly game as both teams could not make the playoffs. But this was one of the most exciting games of the tournament. The Warriors led almost the whole game but a late 4th quarter serge by the Sun Devils sent the game to overtime. In the OT the Warriors were able to get a 4 point lead but back to back buckets tied the game up. The Warriors led by 1 with 15 seconds left and Sun Devils ball. Jamal Wright of the Sun Devils made his move to the basket with 5 seconds left and dished the ball off to Emo Ofori who converted the lay-in with 1 second on the clock to give the Sun Devils the win. The last two set of games were postponed til Tuesday because of rain and today there was no rain site. Playoffs begin Wednesday. |
8/12 |
Here is a brief overview of what went on today at UDC I will have a full report tomorrow. Gauchos and Brooklyn Bridge met in a Junior game and if the Guachos had lost they would have likely missed out on the playoffs. But Kenny Eusey played inspired and Gauchos blewout the Bridge. In a Senior game Riverside blewout previously undefeated Spring Valley 69-47. In another Senior game the B Ballers with stood a late surge from Upstate Flava to win and keep their slim playoff hopes alive. Lashard Duren dominated with 33. In the last game of the day Riverside and Globe met in a College game. Once again a Riverside team put a 1 in a teams lost column in a close game. 3 players for the Church scored 20 or more which was enough to set of Manix Aubienthal's 33 points behind 8 3-pointers. Updated Standings thru today. |
8/6 |
The final game of the day was a Midget game between Riverside A and Wake-Eden. As expected Riverside ran away with this game to win by 33. Riverside played most of the game without Arturo Dubois who was in foul trouble and still managed to score 16. Tyrell Biggs added 14, while Serge Clement scored 19 for Wake-Eden. I have also found out that Biggs has been held back and will repeat the 8th grade. |
8/5 |
In another senior game Minus defeated the Sun Devils 73-69. Minus led the whole game and survived a second half push from the Devils who were led by Martin Singleton's 26 points. Willie Vargas scored 20 for Minus. |
7/30 |
The final game of the day on Court B was the Gauchos vs. the Shockers in a college division game. The first half of play was dominated by Da Choz as they pushed out to a 10 point half time lead. The first half got started with technical free throws for the Shockers. The Shockers were able to take a 46-44 lead but it was short lived as Da Choz went on a 6-0 run. The Shockers were able to regain the lead and with 7 seconds left Rob Lincoln was at the line shooting two with a 1 point lead. Lincoln was able to make them both to raise the lead to 3 and put the pressure on the Gauchos. Everyone in the gym knew who was getting the ball, Sheiku Kabba but he is better known as Sickle. Sickle got the ball and took the 3 but was fouled with 1 second left. Kabba made the first free throw but missed the second. After a timeout he tried to miss the third on purpose but the shot rattled in, and that pretty much ended the Gauchos hopes. The final score was 63-62 with the Shocker on top. Ade Edwards led the way for the Shockers with 18 and as usual Sickle led the way for the Choz with 19. |
7/29 |
In other games the Brooklyn Beasts defeated the Woverines 63-60 in a Senior division game. In another Senior divsion game the B Ballers fell to Spring Valley in a close game. The Holy Cross Panthers routed the Basketeers with a 30+ point win in a Junior Division game. |
7/23 |