Report: Hamilton Silences The Doubters And Defeats The First-Seeded Guelph Nighthawks!
In an epic entrance, the two Ontario teams battle it out to determine which team can dethrone the other. At the start of this game, the Badgers immediately make an impact and go on a massive scoring streak. With Guelph being unprepared and overwhelmed by Hamilton’s performance, they struggled to score anything and instead turned over the ball almost every possession and entered a scoring drought. With coach Kissi realizing this early on, he constructs a quick scoring scheme against the Badgers and starts to tell his roster to get inside the paint and draw fouls as much as they can. As a result, this scheme worked, and Guelph returned from a massive deficit and started to build momentum. Hamilton, however, had a balanced assortment of elite scorers. From Briante Weber shooting lights out to Jaylen Babb-Harrison catching fire early on, the Badgers were more controlled than the Nighthawks. Even though this scheme worked for the Nighthawks, the Badgers entered the second quarter with a different mentality that would shake up the entire Guelph roster!
With Hamilton exiting the first quarter with a score of 21-16, the Badgers needed to quickly figure out how to end this classless yet productive scheme. Immediately, Hamilton attacks the basket violently and copies the same scheme drawn up by the Nighthawks. The more they fouled, the more that Guelph lost grip on the game. The Nighthawks had trouble scoring the ball, defending the ball, and facilitating it due to the aggressiveness that Hamilton displayed. Hamilton was much more confident and controlled in this quarter, and even though Tyrell Green had an incredible game for the Nighthawks, it was not enough as Hamilton ended the half with the final score of 46-33.
Briante Weber stat-line- 17 PTS | 7 REB | 1 STL
If Guelph wanted to win this game, defence and fewer turnovers would do the trick. Unfortunately, Hamilton is a very talented team as they possess quite a few former NBA players, including Briante Weber, who played in 41 NBA games! This gave Hamilton a considerable advantage as the skilled Weber would easily dance his way into the lane and score numerous times. With Guelphs starters struggling all game, their bench unit kept them alive as both Tyrell Green and Jamal Reynolds managed to score more than 25 points as a duo while receiving limited minutes! Surely enough, Guelph would go on to produce a little scoring run that was quickly denied due to how early they got in foul trouble. With Hamilton learning the Nighthawks playing method early on, Guelph appeared to have nothing else to show and entered a hole of defeat. While Hamilton was celebrating, Guelph was contemplating whether this game is even worth fighting for as the final score at the end of the third quarter was 71-56!
The Nighthawks were losing this game because of two main reasons being lack of confidence and foolish fouls. In the third quarter, they had a little scoring run and could have changed the outcome of this game if they believed in themselves. From the beginning, Hamilton entered this game with a level of assertiveness and dominance, which granted their lead. Guelph has a talented roster and can work together if they believe in themselves, which was somewhat absent. If the Honey Badgers did not go on a massive scoring run early on, this would have been a closer game. Unfortunately, Guelph played sloppy basketball in the fourth quarter, feeling as if they suffered enough. With this being a very short scoring quarter, Guelph played great defence, but Hamilton was talented in scoring as they were making virtually everything! WIth them shooting an impressive 50% from the field, it’s no secret that Hamilton entered this game with a level of realizing that they lost their first game while moving past it. Furthermore, Hamilton defended the ball very well as they allowed only 29% of Guelph shots to go in. That’s abysmal! With this being arguably the worst loss this season, the Hamilton Honey-Badgers were crowned the winners and ended the game with the final score of 97-71! If Guelph didn’t get into foul trouble early on in the game, this battle would have displayed more of a fight.