By Eric Poe/sports editor
Brittany Guest/The Collegian
The NE basketball league started Feb. 17 and featured five teams, named Team One through Team Five. What they lacked in creative names, they made up for in creative play with backdoor passes and clutch three-pointers sprinkled throughout the games.
Team One, Team Three and Team Five all came away with wins. Team Two ended with one loss, and Team Four, who had to play twice because of the odd number of teams, lost both of its games.
This was the first of four weeks of league games leading up to a campus champion being decided sometime after spring break.
The first game of the tripleheader featured a poorly played first half by Team One and Team Two, resulting in a 10-9 halftime lead for Team Two. The next 18 minutes were a different story as Team One point guard Donovan Baker led his team to a comeback 45-31 victory with well-placed passes and a three-pointer with six minutes left that put the game out of reach.
Baker said the halftime team talk turned the team around.
“We all said we had to play better defense and get better shots off,” he said.
Baker also attributed the team’s first-half struggles to not having played together before.
“As the games get going, we’ll get more fluid,” he said. “I think next game we will be fine. I guarantee we will score 60 points next game.”
The second matchup between Team Three and Team Four started out fairly even, with Team Four member Exequiel Espejo hitting a three-pointer after eight minutes to put his team up 17-16. That would be the last time Team Four held the lead, however, as Team Three outscored them 41-24 from then on, winning 57-41.
“They were just really athletic,” Team Four player David Schmidt said. “Hopefully, we can get it together before the next game.”
The highlight of the game was Team Three player Courtland Williams executing a move that would make a Harlem Globetrotter blush, which left his defender on the ground and the crowd cheering.
“I saw one guy coming toward me so I crossed him up,” he said. “Then the ball got too far away from me, so I grabbed it and spun. It was all instinct.”
The move set the tone for Team Three, and Williams said the win gave him hope for the season.
“I don’t want to count my chickens before they hatch, but we will do good,” he said. “I don’t want to be too cocky, but we can play with all of these teams.”
Team Four didn’t have time to rue their loss as it played in the final game of the day, its second in a row.
Team Five was the better team, showing it on the court and on the scoreboard, taking a 28-21 halftime lead.
The second half didn’t get any better for Team Four as Team Five dominated, eventually running out a 66-47 win.
Cameron Armstrong, the main catalyst for Team Five, said he was happy with how the team played.
“There was a lot of really good defense by us,” he said. “We had a lot of fast break points, and we got a lot of open shots.”
Armstrong said his players had good chemistry even though they had never played together.
“Everyone is nice and chill, and that helped,” he said. “And we just hit the ground running.”
