2015-2016 Playoffs

	1. Dark Blue
3. Yellow		1. Dark Blue
	6. Royal Blue
6. Royal Blue
			1. Dark Blue
4. Light Blue			Champion
	5. Red
5. Red		2. Orange
	2. Orange

Round One, Game One: #3 Yellow (Daniher) versus #6 Royal Blue (Tierney)

-The playoff seeds were pretty much irrelevant for the first round of the playoffs this year. Team Yellow came in at the number three seed, but only due to a hot start to the season and a couple miraculous wins in junkball games down the stretch. Along the way, Team Yellow lost the heart and soul and crotch of their team when Mike Davis went down. From there on out, an already limited offensive team looked like a turtle trying to fuck a jumbo jet; buckets were hard to come by. In the end, they were doomed by their limitations. Team Royal Blue came with a balanced attack, but didn't need to bring much more than a C+ effort to send Yellow to the off-season. Royal Blue will need to play at least A- ball in order to stay in the game with their round two opponent, the universally-despised Team Dark Blue.

Round One, Game Two: #4 Light Blue (Vito) versus #5 Red (Garmes)

-It might be a shame that these teams ended up playing one another in the first round, as they both play a similar style of run-and-gun that can make a top-seed nervous. One might even venture to say that these teams both would have been favorites to beat both teams in the other first round matchup. But that's why playoff seeds and regular season records mater. As it was, this was a close game until the last couple minutes when Red was finally able to pull away and secure a quarterfinals appearance. Red will come in chucking against Team Orange looking for the upset in round two.

Round Two, Game One: #1 Dark Blue (Matt V) versus #6 Royal Blue (Tierney)

-At this point, pretty much everyone is rooting against Dark Blue, but it was obvious early on in this semifinal game that Royal Blue was not the team to take them down. Using a well-balanced attack, Dark Blue just leaned on Tierney's squad until they stopped fighting. What Dark Blue does well is exploit weakness and go on lightning-quick runs. All season they've preyed on weak roster spots and used that momentum to go on sixty second, 10-0 runs to put themselves comfortably ahead. With so many offensive weapons, you need to play a complete game to keep them on their heels. In the half court, they're very average. Rob led the way with 27 points and Luke threw in a well-earned triple-double with 14 points, 10 rebounds, and 11 assists (the first triple-double in HatchetBall playoff history). But most of Rob's points and Luke's assists came from wide open shooters; something that won't happen as often in the championship game. As for Royal Blue, it was an up-and-down season which ended on another down. Steigerwald was held to his lowest scoring output of the season (likely his career, though that's unverified) with just 13 points. Mark V shot well and finished with 19 (in potentially his last HatchetBall game ever) and completely shucking my 13 point theory for this team. After an entire season of losing EVERY game Mark V scored below 13 points and winning EVERY game he scored over 13 points, Royal Blue proceeded to win in Round One when Mark V scored 12 points and lose in Round Two when he scored 19 points. Go figure. When will Steigerwald get a sniff at the finals? He'll need a strong draft next year, that's for sure.

Round Two, Game Two: #2 Orange (Brennan) versus #5 Red (Garmes)

-Team Red really came on during the second half of the season. After they added the smaller version of Statham, a run-and-gun mentality took hold and produced great results. But there's a big difference between teams that work inside-out and outside-in. Team Dark Blue and Team Orange both orientate their offenses based on dribble drives and post-ups of various sorts (high-post with Luke, low-post with Mark). Both of these teams still take a TON of threes, but the probing and prodding of interior play helps soften a defense and create even better outside looks. Team Red played with a bombs-away mentality at all times. There wasn't a time when the Statham brothers or their host of great shooters weren't thinking about getting shots up from deep. At times, this can result in a tricky feast or famine. In the first half of this semi-final, no one could find the range and Team Red feel behind by double-digits at half-time. As usual, the effort expended to rally back in the second half left them vulnerable on defense due to exhaustion. So even when the shots started to fall, Mark was able to sloth them on the other end and push his team ahead time and again. Mark finished with a week-high 31 points, scoring in all sorts of ways. Matt Koll played his usual steady game, chipping in 8 points, 12 boards, and 4 assists. As expected, Team Orange will square off against Team Dark Blue in the championship. Can the Koll brothers stop the evil Team Dark Blue before it's too late?

Championship: #2 Orange (Brennan) versus #5 Dark Blue (Matt V)

-Sports can be frustrating to watch. We spend a lot of time attaching numbers, statistics, and probabilities to the games so we can better understand and predict what's going to happen. But the sad part of this type of effort is that it takes away the thrill of uncertainty. While we all secretly root for underdogs to topple the douchebag favorites, the statistics and probabilities tell us that it will only happen rarely. Team Dark Blue beat Team Orange twice during the regular season (once on a buzzer beater), so they were the clear favorites heading into the championship round. What made Dark Blue's team different and special all season was what won out in the end: depth and defense. Lacking any major weakness in their roster let Dark Blue play a focused style of team defense that was geared to shutdown the opposition's first option. In the semifinal round, Dark Blue held Steigerwald to just 13 points, far below his regular season average of 23 ppg. In the championship, they swarmed scoring champion Mark Koll, who piled up close to 30 ppg during the season, and held him to just 14 points. But in order to shut down these players, you're basically conceding shots and compromised rebound position everywhere else on the court. This can become a risky strategy, even a losing strategy, unless you have sound defenders and active rebounders at all five positions. Dark Blue was the only team that had this type of depth, and it showed time and time again. Dark Blue was subject to the same scoring droughts that every other team was, but their defense always held strong. I can't recall a game where they allowed an extended run of any kind. They forced you to beat them slowly, painstakingly, possession by possession, which is a tough road to tread. For Team Orange, they fought every step of the way, but needed some offensive magic to get over the hump, and sadly, that never materialized. Dark Blue held on to a 6-10 advantage for almost all of the second half and the game slowly expired. It's hard to imagine that Matt V will be able to assemble the same roster again next year, so things might not be so easy next time around for Rob and company. That's the thing about probabilities: they're stone cold. You can lose your favorite status just as fast as you gained it. And no one will care. See you next year.