APRIL FOOLS EDITION:
All Bets Are Off For House Basketball Stars
NEIRAD enilno April Fools edition
This year’s 11th/12th Grade Boys YMCA Basketball League emerged as a beacon of fair play and unbridled recreational fulfillment. The league kept all of the best elements of Varsity sports (athleticism, competition, skill, and the quest for a championship), and left behind the negative aspects (glory-hogging, preoccupation with recruitment, commitment, intensity) to create the ultimate sports experience; all of the excitement and liveliness we crave, and none of the ulterior motives that spoil the fun.
But new allegations have surfaced that threaten to destroy House Basketball’s fun-friendly, amateur image. According to reliable sources from the disgruntled Thunder team (the league runner’s up), several key players on various teams participated in an elaborate and expansive gambling ring that effectively scripted the House League Playoffs, and even some preceding regular season games. Said my sources of the House League and its pristine reputation, “It’s all an elaborate charade. This league is gritty, grittier even than the pros. Some players have said that house is life, but it’s all an act; these are the very same guys putting money down on games. House isn’t life – House is money, and power.”
Although far-fetched to say the least, this conspiracy fits perfectly in the context of the many twists and turns near the end of the YMCA season. Take the Mavericks, for example; the Mavericks rode their overwhelming preseason hype to a 5-0 record behind an unstoppable offense spearheaded by big man Larker Pange. But the Mavericks closed out the regular season with two blowout losses, and then an opening game loss in the playoffs. Just as their season seemed doomed, the Mavericks recovered to win three more games. Throughout this tumultuous sequence of events, many followers of the league lost huge sums of money betting on the Mavericks, or against them when the team seemed finished. Three gamblers who faired far better than the crowd? The Mavericks own Pange, Micky Riller, and Nam Selson, all of who were extremely streaky down the stretch (except for in their bets, which consistently brought good returns). Many observers say that the trio looked devastated upon losing their last-ever organized basketball game, but this could not be farther from the truth. “I could care less about basketball,” Pange said, “I was just upset that I couldn’t exploit the innocent, enthusiastic fans of the YMCA League anymore.” Selson echoed these sentiments: “I always got satisfaction when I hit a string of 3-pointers in a row – not because of my skills, but because all of these fans would go crazy over a meaningless game, not realizing that they were cheering me on for taking easy money from their pockets.”
The scandal does not end with the Mavericks; several other big-name teams show some shady activity in their books. The Lakers went undefeated in the regular season, but after a tight opening round playoff win, lost twice in a row in a stunning early elimination.
But the most shocking twist in this nefarious crime ring is the involvement of multiple members of the league champion Spurs team. There appears to be compelling evidence that Spurs superstar Pen Breston is the main instigator of the entire scandal. The signs were there all along; clearly among the most talented teams, the Spurs always fell just below the radar of the frontrunners, thanks to the untimely absence of Breston every time the Spurs seemed poised to jump into the realm of the favorites. Breston missed roughly 45% of the regular season, and his team lost whenever he missed more than half a game. The sources from the Thunder described in detail the circumstances of the Spurs’ first loss of the season, during which Breston was “studying” at the library. Although Breston believed he had fooled everyone because of the approaching midterms, the Thunder had a spy in the library; the only studying that he was doing was research on how to spend the 6.9 million dollars he had just won betting against his team.
The Thunder, the team on which my two sources play, were not squeaky clean either; the leaders of the betting ring rigged the bracket to get the Thunder into the final, with the expectation being that no one thought that they would go deep in the tournament, let alone beat the Spurs at full strength. This begs the question, why come forward now? My sources, Ranny Dizzuto, and super scorer Bony Tritton, claim that they were double-crossed in the finals. It was agreed upon that the Spurs would avenge their prior defeat, but the popularity of the senior-laden Spurs led to an undesirable gambling spread. Drastic steps were taken, including the faking of injury by Spurs big man Handrew Ern. Eventually a +3 spread for the Spurs was decided upon to fix the betting balance. But Breston decided he wanted all of the money, and scored a lay-up at the buzzer to beat the spread. In light of recent events, it was a fitting end for a season in which apparent competitiveness and jubilation was really a guise for the greedy race for money and power.
