Leagues!

It was an eventful week for me in the world of extracurricular activities.

Season 4 of After Hours Gaming League officially started this past Sunday.  I returned as captain of the IBM team in their 3rd season, but this year I decided to make cuts to the team whereas in past years we would allow almost anyone to play.  I wanted to field as small a team as possible, to not have to worry about everyone's playtime and playing players of lower skill level.  There is no handicap in the AHGL, so why handicap ourselves?  So this year, I decided to run with only 7 master league players.  Here is a snippet from an introductory e-mail I sent to followers within the IBM company:

This season there are over 50 teams signed up and IBM entered as the #2 preranked team coming in.  Companies are able to enter multiple teams and most have both an A-Team and B-Team, sometimes even a C-Team.  IBM's first match was a doozy, a rematch of Season 2's finals against Epic Medical Systems.  It might've also been IBM's toughest matchup of the regular season with the new Swiss format.  Theoretically, matches should only get easier from here on out.  So a victory over #3 Epic was huge for us, woohoo!  It's gonna be a good season and I'm really eager to try and lead us back to the finals in California!

IBM Basketball League also started up this week, with our first games being held last night.  This was my first year officially taking over as sole commissioner of the league following Dale's retirement from IBM.  Two weeks ago I was pretty concerned there might not be enough players for a full league, as only 38 people had signed up and 56 was the target.  Also, my intentions of recruiting new players around the site were thwarted when I was told to take down fliers that I had put up.  Apparently since IBM is no longer sponsoring the league, we're not allowed to solicit it.  I was pretty depressed about it, but I think next time I will push back and try and talk to the site VP at least.  It just seems silly to me that we have to take down fliers for a league that would only build morale for a company whose morale is in the tank lately.

Unfortunately, my usual core of players (me, Ryan, and Cooper) has been broken up due to Cooper moving to Phoenix and Ryan having a newborn to take care of.  However, I'm loving the new team I drafted.  I invited Evan back as a guest (he was a good replacement when Ryan got injured last year) and I drafted my friend Anthony who brought two guests.  The team is by the quickest in the league and everyone is a baller.  Most teams in IBM league will have a few players who are more liabilities then additions, since some of them are clearly not basketball players but just want to go out and get some exercise.  Here is a look at this season's teams:

If you add up the PPG averages of myself, Evan, Anthony, and Dezi from last year, it would equal 56 PPG.  Add newcomers Ryan and Chris (projected 15 PPG and 4 PPG respectively) and you're looking at well over 70 PPG, LOL.  However, last night we played Team 8 and got off to a really slow start.  Maybe it was rust, maybe it was a drought, or maybe it was getting used to playing with each other, but we only scored 14 points in the first half and found ourselves down 14-24. :/ However, things started to come together both defensively and offensively in the second half, where we outscored them 31-14!  That's more like it!  We ended up winning our first game of the season...and that was without Evan too. :)

So all in all, always excited for leagues to start back up.  I especially look forward to basketball league since I'm in control of it, I know everyone in the league and everyone knows me.  It's just a lot of fun when everything comes together and you know you were a big part of it's success.

Wish me luck and there will be updates to come!