say no playoff schedules

The "open evaluation" period for high school recruits ends today, and unless you're up in Berkeley for the EBO/Oakland Slam N Jam Elite 8, there's nothing else happening in the world of recruiting, at least nothing in SoCal. So why not just drive over to West LA College and see some real college hoops action? Why not indeed. . .

If you can still stand the thought of sitting in a gym on a nice summer day, the Say No College Classic playoffs start today; the "regular" season games ended last night, and while we understand that the games played last night might actually affect the league standings and thus the teams in the playoffs, we have no way of being certain unless and until we make it over to West LA College today when the games start at 12:00 noon.

12:00 noon	4th Place National v. 5th Place American
1:30 p.m.	3rd Place American v. 6th Place National
3:00 p.m.	4th Place American v. 5th Place National
4:30 p.m.	3rd Place National v. 6th Place American

Downs says that "At 3 PM, Team Say No, featuring Earl Watson, Jason Kapono, and Spencer Gloger will take on USC forward Brian Scalabrine's West Coast All-Stars," but BibbyBaby says that "Redd [Scalabrine] and Thurston" play at noon, while 3:00 p.m. will feature "Clancy v. Schea" which means that according to BibbyBaby, the 3:00 p.m. game would be Team Say No (they both agree on that one) versus Riverside Stars, which has Schea Cotton on it, not the West Coast All-Stars. But the really confusing thing is that Jim Downs also says that "This Saturday, July 31, John Bailey's Hollywood Nuggets, led by Moose Bailey, will play Hank's Little Hoopers, featuring Tito Maddox," and if that's so, we don't see a place on the schedule for those teams, given what we thought their standings were and so we're guessing that both of those teams will play instead on Sunday, August 1st. The real answer is that this is just way too confusing for mere mortals, and we're also too lazy also to just pick up the phone and call Rod Smith, the Say No commissioner, or Michael Holtrey, to really find out, so we're going with what we've got below as the most likely matchups. But don't take our word for it; go for yourself and see who's playing:

12:00 noon: West Coast All Stars (Sean Jackson, Chris Popoola, Delano D'Oyen, Brian Scalabrine, Luke Minor, Malachi Thurston, Ryan Miller) against who knows who (we're guessing that it's either Future Stars Elite [Drew Gauldin, Ryan Forehan-Kelly, Chris Burgess, Jake Rohe] or maybe Hoops R Us [Ben Sanders, Kevin Blunt, Chris Funderburk] but really it could also be IEBP or DARE).

1:30 p.m.: Hank's Team (JJ Sola, Andre Larry, Craig Calloway, Lamar Gayle, Jeff Trepagnier) against Trauma (Rico Hines, Erick Ashe, Glen McGowan, Shannon Swillis).

3:00 p.m.: Team Say No (Noel Felix, Mark Onderoa, Spencer Gloger, Jason Kapono, Earl Watson, Sam Clancy, Milton Riley, Antroine Lee) vs. Riverside (Schea Cotton, James Taylor, Nick Gosserand, Todd Ramasar, Kevin Augustine).

4:30 p.m.: BWBA (David Bluthenthal, Doug Gottlieb, Aaron Maxey, David Lalazarian, Terryl Davis, Bo Segeberg, Rafael Berumen) against Entertainment Tonight (Jarvis Turner, Ruben Douglas, James Wright, Brian Heinle, Jaron Collins, Johnny Hardwick).

Whoever is playing, these will be some really competitive games. The playoffs will continue tomorrow, August 1, 1999 with the winner of the Saturday 12:00 noon game playing the first place team in the American Division at 12:00 noon, 1:30 will feature the winner of Saturday's 1:30 game agaisnt the 2nd place National team. At 3:00 p.m. will be the winner of Saturday's 3:00 p.m. game against the 1st place National team, and finally at 4:30 p.m., the winner of Saturday's 4:30 game will take on the 2nd place team in the American division. Graphically, here's what Sunday looks like:

12:00 noon	Winner Saturday noon v. 1st Place American
1:30 p.m.	Winner Saturday 1:30 p.m. v. 2nd Place National
3:00 p.m.	Winner Saturday 3:00 p.m. v. 1st Place National
4:30 p.m.	Winner Saturday 4:30 p.m. v. 2nd Place American

Hopefully by tonight we'll have this all straightened out and we'll be able to post a correct schedule. Again, all the games are at West LA College located just off Jefferson in Culver City. Jim Downs posted a link to the WLA Website which has a nice map and directions, so we'll do the same.