THE DREAM LEAGUE
Asian American / Open Basketball Leagues
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Hypebeasts 56, SK War Dog 42 |
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Hypebeasts Start Off AL Right | |
| August 5, 2007 – New York, NY (DL) – From week to week, teams’ rosters change as fast as JT swaps girlfriends and with that in mind, it no longer raised anyone’s eyebrows when last season’s defending AAA Champs, the Hypebeasts, showed up on Sunday with a line-up that looked not so purely Rockit-like. Hype, born and bred primarily on the streets of Chinatown, have kept their core intact – a team coached by Virgilio Borbo – and have dominated and ruled many a tournament or league around in recent times with a team that, from top to bottom, has paid their dues and kept it real all under the New York Rockits' organization. So, when Hype went in search of a couple of free agents this off-season – so unlike them – and fished out Brian Sun from Moneyball and Alan Chye out of thin air, it was a first for them. Adding non Rockit players to their team was unprecedented. But since this is the Dream League, and teams here add players to their roster they find off the sidelines after a game has started, it went down without much fanfare. Without much fanfare was also the pitting of Ian Yu and Steve Gong, former SK War Dogs, against their old team from last season – a team they had to leave once Hype made the jump up to the AL. And speaking of adding players off the sideline after a game had started, SK, who started the game undermanned (with just 4 – is this becoming habit for them?), added unsuspecting Will Pun when he entered the gym right before the half. “Hey Will. Nice to meet you. Pass me the ball,” Arif Ansari would say during a timeout. Prior to that, strangely, SK kept the game close a man down and trailed only 14-10 after one and then actually led at the half, 19-18. Their free agent pick-up during the week (captain Andre Liu ran into him on the street and remembered he was good from his Wolverine days), JR Bautista, opened the game with a three, SK led 5-0 shortly thereafter, and a game was on. Hype would climb back into it as Borbo hit for 5 in the 1st and Sun paid dividends immediately with a fastbreak conversion on a feed from Yu, but in the 2nd, SK stymied Hype into a 2/13 quarter and marched to the free throw line themselves as they pounded the ball inside against a small defense. (Howie Chu is big, but that’s it.) When Bautista finished an and 1 right before the half and SK snagged the lead, thoughts of Hype and whether they would fare well in a bigger and faster division were brought to the forefront again. Well, as the AAA MVP, Yu, opened the 2nd half with consecutive dimes to Borbo for back-to-back 3’s, those doubts dissipated. The kids could still play. Gong got a put-back, Chu scored twice in the post, and Hype held a 35-23 lead quickly after a 17-4 run. Bautista, however, started a 9-0 SK streak with a 3-point play and Ansari (15 rbs) added a pair of scores inside, and this topsy-turvy game headed into the 4th with Hype ahead just 35-32. SK’s young buck, Josh Tuazon, had barely done any damage too up to that point. And they were running with just 5 players against a tireless Hype group. Tuazon (10 pts, 3 stls) stuck a free throw to bring SK within a deuce to start the 4th, but from there on, the lack of lungs, legs, and ludicrously long shots (just 1/13 from 3), doomed the War Dog dudes to defeat. Yu (12 pts, 5 rbs, 7 assts, 3 stls) kept running. Borbo (14 pts, 4/7 from 3) kept bombing. The new free agents – Sun and Chye – hooked up on a play that resulted in the first of two triples from Chye. Despite an endless effort from Bautista (he scored half of the War Dog 42 points and grabbed 10 boards to boot), Hype heaped it on in the 4th and won it going away 56-42. Hype’s 57.1% team shooting in the 4th was way too much for SK and no doubt no subs played a part in that. After, the bruised and beaten pair of Liu and Ansari forlornly looked over at Yu and Gong, who were just their running mates two short months ago. “Those kids. Geez. I miss ‘em,” said Liu. “Don’t stand so close to me,” said Ansari, “but yea, every breath I take, with our suddenly slower team, it drives me to tears.” For those who know, the game was over, but The Police was coming. |
Score by Quarters
| Team | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | OT | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SK War Dog | 10 | 9 | 13 | 10 | - | 42 |
| Hypebeasts | 14 | 4 | 17 | 21 | - | 56 |
Boxscore
| SK War Dog - 42 | |||||||||||
| Player | FG | 3PT | FT | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | F | PTS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aguillo, LJ | DNP | ||||||||||
| Ansari, Arif | 3 / 12 [0.250] | 0 / 1 [0.000] | 1 / 4 [0.250] | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 7 | |
| Bautista, JR | 7 / 21 [0.333] | 1 / 7 [0.143] | 6 / 10 [0.600] | 10 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 21 | |
| Govani, Aly | DNP | ||||||||||
| Liu, Andre | 1 / 13 [0.077] | 0 / 2 [0.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 10 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 2 | |
| Pun, Will | 1 / 4 [0.250] | 0 / 1 [0.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | |
| Rahman, Siam | DNP | ||||||||||
| Shen, Felix | DNP | ||||||||||
| Tewary, Akshat | DNP | ||||||||||
| Tuazon, Josh | 2 / 5 [0.400] | 0 / 2 [0.000] | 6 / 10 [0.600] | 3 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 2 | 10 | |
| Wang, Owen | DNP | ||||||||||
| 14 / 55 [0.255] | 1 / 13 [0.077] | 13 / 24 [0.542] | 38 | 6 | 7 | 1 | 17 | 9 | 42 | ||
| Hypebeasts - 56 | |||||||||||
| Player | FG | 3PT | FT | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | F | PTS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Borbo, Virgilio | 5 / 8 [0.625] | 4 / 7 [0.571] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 14 | |
| Chen, Timothy | 0 / 4 [0.000] | 0 / 1 [0.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | |
| Chu, Howard | 5 / 10 [0.500] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 10 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 10 | |
| Chu, Leon | 1 / 6 [0.167] | 0 / 1 [0.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | |
| Chye, Alan | 2 / 5 [0.400] | 2 / 3 [0.667] | 2 / 2 [1.000] | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 8 | |
| Gong, Steven | 3 / 6 [0.500] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 | |
| Lau, Jimmy | 1 / 1 [1.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 2 | |
| Ng, Victor | DNP | ||||||||||
| Sun, Brian | 1 / 4 [0.250] | 0 / 2 [0.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 2 | |
| Yu, Ian | 5 / 13 [0.385] | 0 / 3 [0.000] | 2 / 4 [0.500] | 5 | 7 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 12 | |
| 23 / 57 [0.404] | 6 / 17 [0.353] | 4 / 6 [0.667] | 34 | 14 | 13 | 1 | 18 | 20 | 56 | ||
Referees
| Tyrone Blount: | Rate Me |
| Steve Davis: | Rate Me |