COULD NOT BE CLOSER

Boasters League final round~~

What a major push. The final Wednesday of the Boasters League regular season was like Grand Central Station during rush hour. So many people wanting to get on the court, oodles of make-up matches getting completed, the mad rush was on! Even during the week, players suddenly took action and scores were tumbling in from all angles. Now, if only the other 8 Wednesdays had the same activity level, hmmmm?

“Vivio’s” must have been threatened with death. Incredibly, in the last 7 days, they picked up 62 points - an amazing effort that must be applauded. Other teams also put up respectable amounts with the exception of “Foss Nation” who ended up last by a long, long way and once the deadline has passed, the standings were shockingly close. “Space Geckos” had the bye, and it appeared they thought they were too far ahead for anyone to catch them. They were wrong, and they are also awfully fortunate.

A three team tie atop the standings. “Space Geckos”, “Winky-Dinks”, and “Vivio’s” all with 222 points. As in years past, the dreaded bonus points would be the determining factor. “Space Geckos” had 65, one more than the “Winky-Dinks”, and 6 more than “Vivio’s”. “Vivio’s” punishment is ending up third and missing out on the first round bye for the finals.

The last play-off spot went to “Mongoose” who held off the “Wardogs” with a couple of very late scores coming in. “The Nicker Ballers” almost caught up, they’ll be wondering where they missed out on 7 points. As is customary, I look to look at the stats for the half…

• 68.5% of matches were completed. That’s down 7.5% from the first half.
• “Butter Nutz” and “Wardogs” played the most matches with 73%.
• “Foss Nation” played the least with 61%. They also picked up the least amount of bonus points with 52. No wonder why they ended up last.
• Not once were all 17 matches played in any one round.
• “Butter Nutz” picked up the most bonus points with 69. They had the most bonus points in the first half too – but they scored 89 then… big difference.
• “Vivio’s” had the best winning percentage with 58%. Worst winning percentage? Yep – “Foss Nation”. They had 41%.
• The most points scored in any one round was 35 by the “Space Geckos” in round 6.
• The least amount of points scored in any one round was 9 by… “Foss Nation”! in round 9.
• Only 6 players picked up all 8 bonus points. Same as the first half.
• 10 players didn’t score any bonus points at all.
• 21 players completed all 8 matches. Not bad. We had 39 in the first half.
• Of those 21 players, 3 of them were also undefeated.
• Marc Topacio from the “Space Geckos” picked up the most points of any player in the league with 26. He scored the most points in the first half too, and was moved up 3 positions.
• 222 points would have only been good enough for 5^th position on the standings in the first half.
• Every single player in the league scored at least 1 point for their team.

Finals are always difficult to predict. “Vivio’s” and “Mongoose” played in round 3 and it was “Vivio’s” scraping the victory here 22-21. “Butter Nutz” lost to “Nick at Night” in round 5, 32-28. These results are too close to predict a more likely winner come Wednesday; we’ll see who turns up…