Bellingham Slam IBL Champions!

[Minor League Man]

By a score of 116-111, the Bellingham Slam have dethroned the Elkhart Express as IBL Champions, ending the city's 60-year basketball title drought.

Leading scorer in the game is the Slam's Paul Hafford (#7), with a total of 30 points.

Congrats to the Slam and the city of Bellingham; congrats to the Express for their long dynasty and continued strength.

Can't wait to see what happens next year! (if there is a next year)

[winds55]

Congratulations to Bellingham. Tough to tell much from watching the play-by-play online, but it appeared to be a hard-fought game. If anyone has pictures they can post here, that'd be nice. I'm sure I'll be recovered enough in a couple of days to look at them.

Looking forward to next year here, too.

[balling2008]

Wow congrats to Bellingham. There will be some people eating crow this weekend! :lol:

[winds55]

Wow congrats to Bellingham. There will be some people eating crow this weekend! :lol:

Yeah - got any good recipes? :redface:

[turbocamyes]

I stayed up to 1AM watching the play by play. The Slam hit on 8 of 8 free throws in the last 2 minutes. It was nice to see Bellingham finally win. They did everything right while in the ABA--playing all their away games, including traveling to Tijuana, and the east coast both years for the playoffs. And they had a great website with updates and player stats. Congrats.

[besl]

Here's one photo I've found so far that shows the post-game celebration. There were several professional photographers and a video production company there, so I'm sure more will surface in the next few days:

http://joyce.taron.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/slam-victory2.jpg

The championship trophy was a pretty good-looking piece of hardware (its obscured by the player with the towel over his shoulder in this pic) and the Slam had championship hats already made up for whichever team won. The dance team handed out tubes of confetti to the courtside ticket holders as the game was ending, which explains the mess on the floor.

[SignGuyDino]

Yeah - got any good recipes? :redface:

http://www.crowbusters.com/recipes.htm

[tbayz1]

Congrats SLAM!

They are a very classy and professional franchise. They deffinantely know what they are doing up in Bellingham and deserve a championship! Go Slam!

[winds55]

LMAO Thanks, Dino. Since it's not hunting season and I don't have any already in the freezer, I'll just have to stop by KFC(row) instead.

[Ken, Steelheads fan]

Maybe if Coach Beathea showed-up for the all*star game then he may have had an answer for Bellingham:
http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080720/SPORTS12/807200423/1170/Sports

"It was a combination of a lot of things,'' said Beathea by phone Saturday during a stopover in Minneapolis as the team was en route home. "No. 1, we played our worst game in three years. Bellingham also played really well. We never found an answer for anything they did. The better team won on this given night.


Two Bellingham players started (as seen below in white) for the west during the 2008 all*star game:
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t181/kennethap/DSCI0704.jpg

[winds55]

Maybe if Coach Beathea showed-up for the all*star game then he may have had an answer for Bellingham

Since the key to the game Friday seemed to be TEAM rather than individual play, I doubt seeing the two guys on the floor as opposed to hearing what his assistants would have told him would have helped. From what I've read it sounds like the Bellingham team on Friday was quite different than the team I saw on film - I think they did their homework and knew that it would require a strong defense to defeat the Express, and worked on that part of the game quite a bit.

[Elkhart_Fan]

I agree with Winds...seeing 2 players wouldn't have shown anything about the Slam. The Slam, unlike Portland last year, played as a team - and it took a team effort to defeat the 2 time IBL champs. Hats off to the Slam....

[besl]

I agree with Winds...seeing 2 players wouldn't have shown anything about the Slam. The Slam, unlike Portland last year, played as a team - and it took a team effort to defeat the 2 time IBL champs. Hats off to the Slam....

I think the outcome of the game came down to a few things:

- After Moodie hit a couple early shots to open the game, Brandon Hartley came off the bench to play D on him and gave him fits the rest of the night. After hitting his first 2 3-pointers, he missed his next 10.

- I don't know how much he would have played, but not having James Tyler available as another big body inside probably hurt.

- I'm wondering if playing on a longer (pro-size) floor didn't affect Elkhart's ryhtym. It might be hard to asjust on the fly to having eveything 10 feet further down the court than you are used to.

- Marques Lewis' ejection in the second half was huge for the Slam. He was banging inside all night, and not having him on the floor down the stetch was a hugh disadvantage.