Game Summary
In a game of such quality that deserved a much less controversial outcome, the Good Old Titans continued to ride their streak of close wins to a disputed victory over the Green Dot Ballers. The official score will go down as a 71-68 win for the Titans, but upon video review, the Ballers actually scored 70 points, with one basket not being properly recorded and the Titans only scored 69, with a first half basket mistakenly double counted. The controversy overshadowed an all time performance by the Green Dot duo of Will Harris and Kyle Welty, who combined for 56 points!!!
The game was controlled by the Titans for the most part as they rode some hot three point shooting in the first half (5 of their first 7) to take a nine point lead into halftime and then used strong defense to extend that lead to 14 with just over a couple minutes remaining. However a furious comeback by the Ballers would find the Titans having to survive a last second three point attempt by Mike Reamy to survive with the disputed 71-68 win.
Headlines
These turnovers do not taste good at all - The Ballers faced a young and athletic team that did a great job of getting back in transition. Their active hands and defensive intensity combined with some poor decision making by GDB led to 14 turnovers and a couple of fast breaks that turned big advantages into either bad shots or no points. In the rematch, the Ballers will need to tighten this area up considerably.
3 point indigestion - If that wasn't bad enough, the Ballers could not find the mark with a host of their typically open threes. Outside of Kyle Welty (3-5) the rest of the Green Dot Bricklayers combined for just 2 makes in 19 tries (11% - doh!!). That was a far cry from the 16-40 (40%) performance through the first two games or even the spring session where the team shot 32% from downtown.
Strong jaw bodes well for future fights - Scoreboard issues aside - the Green Dot Crew proved they could take a punch and fight back. After getting run off the court by the Joy Boys during a 14-0 around the 8 min mark of the second half last week, the script was looking similar this week - A back and forth game, where the Ballers ran out of steam midway through the second half. This time the Ballers re-wrote the script.
The Titans were up 48-42 with 14:30 remaining and controlled the second half to the tune of 16-8 to seemingly put the game on ice at 64-50 with 2:30 left to play. At that moment, Kyle Welty hit a corner 3 that sparked an incredible 16-4 run which featured some missed free throws by the Titans and a pair of five point possessions by GDB. The Welty 3 was quickly followed by full court pressure by Chris Larson and Mike Reamy that led to a steal and lay in by Will Harris. Then with about 40 seconds left, the Ballers second 5 point possession featured Welty scoring on a drive and getting fouled, followed by successfully executing the (un?)intentional missed free throw and rebound. When Welty came out of the scrum with the loose ball and the Ballers used a subsequent out of bounds play to feed Harris for another three point play, this time, he successfully converted. As covered above, this should have been the sequence featured in a great comeback win, but it wasn't to be on this night with the scoreboard errors.
MVP
Will Harris/Kyle Welty - Don't want to lose sight of the absolutely monster performances turned in by the Green Dot stalwarts. Harris employed a variety of moves in the paint on his way to a Baller franchise record for points in a half (19!!!) and kept things up in the second frame to finish with a career high 28. Welty was not to be denied either, showcasing his all around game, combining threes and drives with a bit of mid-range mastery. Their combined efforts were not just due to volume, but incredibly high efficiency from the field (59%) and the line (75%). An all time great performance overshadowed by the scoreboard failure.
Up Next
Second time on the round robin. Self Check (1-2) 7:00pm - In a league with incredible parity (5 of six games decided by 6 points or less), Self Check logged their first win last week, beating the Joy Boys 54-49. The Titans scoreboard win puts them at 3-0 and the rest of the league at 1-2.
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