TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- Showtime avenged their runner-up finish last year with a runaway win for the 2016-2017 intramural basketball championship last Thursday.
The 10-member team overcame a hard-won first half comeback by defending champs 366th MPC Bunch of Losers, seizing the trophy 58-42.
“The second half we started playing together as a team,” coach/player Jarail Smith said. “We played our defense. We felt like we wanted to make it a game, and we closed it out.”
Smith, a varsity Tinker Hawks player, fueled Showtime’s fast start. He scored the team’s opening six points, dropping the game-high 21 points total.
Showtime’s lead widened to as many as seven points before Bunch of Losers rallied back. Down 14-7, Sam Bryant (10 pts.) and David Alexander (14 pts.) combined to score BOL’s next 11 points. The run included a Bryant 3-pointer and three consecutive baskets by Alexander.
An Anthony Smith (9 pts.) basket and another Bryant 3-pointer nailed down the Bunch of Losers’ 24-23 halftime lead.
The scoring was competitive and close until a little past halfway through the second half. That’s when a Showtime surge that included a basket and 3-pointer from Kendall Needland (17 pts.) and two points from Marques Mitchell – all unanswered – forced BOL to time out at 5:35. Showtime led 45-36.
The break didn’t help because from there it was Showtime. Moses Mitchell and Marcus Surrell (12 pts.) blitzed for two steals. Showtime slowed the pace with perimeter passing, with no foul attack from BOL until the last 60 seconds.
By then it was too late. BOL dropped their pressure, and Showtime added to their lead with Needland’s wide open basket in the paint, two points from Javonte’ Gray (12 pts.) and Corey Clark’s final-shot 3-pointer.
Bunch of Losers won the Military League; Showtime was the top team in the Civilian League.