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Above the Pacific Rim Best at Hillcrest
At
first glance, it would seem that not a lot has changed in the gay
basketball world as teams get ready for this summer's Gay Games.
The annual San Diego Hillcrest Classic in January featured a final
game between a longtime member of the LA Freeze and the New York
Ballers, a matchup that has been played out at numerous tournaments
over the past three years. Upon closer inspection though, there
were a lot of interesting developments with teams on the rise and
teams in flux. And lots of missing players on all sorts of teams.
Let's be clear: while Freeze member Gabe helped carry Above The
Pacific Rim to a victory over the New York Ballers, this wasn't a
permanent changing of the guard. With injuries to key members of
the Freeze, LA sat this tourney out and Gabe was able to continue
his winning streak with some veteran Rim help. The Ballers also
were missing their starting point guard Mike R and a few other
regulars, but that didn't keep their two dominant big men from
carrying them to the finals. It wasn't easy though, as the San
Francisco Fusion continued to show their surprising finishes last
year weren't a fluke loosing to the Ballers by just one point in the
semifinals in a very close game. If Fusion can get a third big man
to back up their twin towers they might pull a major upset or two in
Chicago in July.
Other teams such as Houston showed they need to be taken seriously
(that #4 is damn good) and San Diego's hometown team just gets more
solid the more they play together. Chicago fielded two teams: Crew
(formerly the old Spin), whose patience in the half court was the
envy of everyone; Spin (those young guns), who hands down played the
best zone defense in the tourney but ran out of gas when they needed
it most; and SD Bombsquad which went from 0-3 on Saturday to almost
upsetting the Sacramento Assassins in the first round on Sunday.
The Assassins had a fine weekend themselves, but couldn't handle the
Rim in the Semi's (ya need a low post presence boys). The Long
Beach Ballers went 2-1 on Saturday, duplicating their success at the
West Coast Classic last October.
Two teams who had disappointing tournaments were the San Francisco
Rockdogs and the Long Beach Rebels. The Rockdogs have restocked for
2006 by adding AJ, Mike A and veteran GG gold medalist Tim Dean to
their strong core of Demarco, Jay and Rory. Their 0-3 record on
Saturday and Sunday loss to the Fusion was the shock of the tourney,
but don't discount them down the road. They are too talented and
once they have time to mesh, they will be very dangerous. The Long
Beach Rebels were missing key players for most of their games, but
still managed to be the only team to defeat the Rim the entire
weekend. And somehow Mark Chambers still plays the best man on man
defense in the league at whatever age he may be.
Congratulation to ATPR who were celebrating on the dance floor
Sunday night. Just like old times.
Next tourney is
April 28-30 in Sacramento.
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