THE MAD RUSH TO THE FINALS

Boasters League final round~~

It was another last minute stampede by all the teams to complete as many matches as possible before the deadline. If only that desperation kicked in weeks ago, who would be in the finals may be quite different. Every team picked up at least 35 points since last Wednesday, with the exception of Butter Nutz who of course had the bye so they are hardly to blame for that. Butter Nutz still picked up 16 points which was significant because without it they would have been eliminated.

Nicker Ballers proved to be frantic just enough, as they picked up 48 points and somehow – after lingering in 8^th and 9^th spot all season long – managed to squeeze themselves into the 6^th and last finals position… at the expense of Over Served and the Wardogs. Mongoose clearly set the standard again, easily finishing on top and the stats below will explain why.

Overall the numbers for the second half of Boasters League are not that great despite the last ditch effort of this past week (which absolutely helped, but we still fell short of wanted expectations).

• 68% of matches were completed. Down 1% from the second half last season, and 4% from two years ago. I don’t like the downward trend here. 
• Mongoose played the most matches with 78%. Hardly surprising. Next best was Winky-Dinks with 73%. Butter Nutz was the only other team to reach 70%. 
• In fact, Mongoose scored more points in the second half than they did in the first half! Very unusual to say the least. 
• On the other hand, the team that came 7^th in the first half this season would have finished 4^th for the second half (223 points). 
• Wardogs played the least with only 61%. They missed the finals by 3 points. 
• Round 2 had the most amount of matches played with just 80%. 
• Winky-Dinks had the greatest win percentage with 56.57%, beating Foss Nation in this category by 0.19%. They also had the greatest amount of 3-0 wins with 28. When the Winky-Dinks won a match, they won it 3-0 50% of the time (best in the league). 
• Lowest win percentage was Nick at Night with 39%. 
• Butter Nutz had a win percentage of just 43% and from those wins, would only win 3-0 just 32% of the time (lowest in the league). The reason they are in the finals is because they played the third highest amount of matches.
• Most points scored in any one round was 42 – Winky-Dinks in round 1 and Mongoose in round 6. 
• Least amount of points in any one round was 17 and was achieved 4 times: Wardogs in round 8, Butter Nutz in round 8 and Nick at Night twice – rounds 5 and 9. 
• Bonus points always paint a clear picture. The top four teams picked up the most bonus points. The bottom four teams picked up the least. If Nick at Night scored as many bonus points as Mongoose, they would be playing next week. 
• Twenty players picked up all 8 bonus points. Not too bad. Ten players didn’t pick up any. Not too good. 
• Just 19 players played all 8 matches. That’s not exactly spectacular. Three players didn’t play any… all due to injury. 
• Nobody played all 8 matches and went undefeated. 
• Mark Fikany (Mongoose) scored the most points this half of any player with 27.

So the quarter final frenzy is upon us. The top 2 teams get the free pass and they have that extra week to prepare. We also lose the two courts on level 4 starting on Monday due to the construction, so everybody will have to be very flexible with their schedules and do their utmost to squeeze their matches in with the limited space we have left.

First up is Foss Nation v Nicker Ballers. This – on paper - is leaning heavily towards Foss Nation for a comfortable victory. When these two played each other in round 4, Foss Nation won 27-20 despite picking up 2 less bonus points, and won 8 of 11 matches. Four of those 8 results were also 3-0. Nicker Ballers will have to step it up here, but it is tough to look past the previous stats and one must put their good money on Foss Nation getting through to the semifinals. 

The other match-up is Butter Nutz v Vivio’s. Their round 2 result had Vivio’s taking it 33-29, they also had 3 more bonus points, but won only 6 of the 13 matches that were completed… and of those 13 matches only one ended up 3-0. A very even looking contest here, but if I had to put my neck on the line – knowing that when I do this, it is usually the kiss of death…! – with great trepidation I am placing my chips on Butter Nutz.