Not supposed to happen?

Yesterday if you were at the Atlhletic Cub NE League, you might have witnessed, the best game of the season! The game was the usual men's league schedule of games on Wednesday Night. By the second game of the night, between the Challengers (5-0) vs the Teddy Bears (2-2), brought a very interesting matchup. The Challengers were unbeaten going into the game, and looked like they were just going to walk all over the Teddy Bears.

If you know the roster on the Challengers team you would definetly think, yeah, blowout for sure! The Challengers roster consists of Georgia State University players. They are playing in the league just to work on their game for the upcoming season. With players height all averaging around 6'5 seemed to be a matchup problem for any team in the league, especially the Teddy Bears. But the Teddy Bears only true height in Thomas Byrd at 6 foot 7, played a very important role in the game.

The game started out very competitive, with both teams scoring on each other. But the quickness, size, and athletic ability of the Challengers seemed to be too much for the Teddy Bears by halftime down by 11 points. With Joe Dukes (Junior transfer from Wake Forest) fastbreak dunks and extreme quickness it seemed that the Challengers were going to roll in the second half to a blowout victory! But the Teddy Bears did not seem intimidated, but upset at themselves.

The Teddy Bears (a mostly all-asian team) finished last season in the Final Four of the league's playoffs. Also most people in the league do not know that the Teddy Bears are currently the best all-asian team in the Atlanta. They are currently ranked #5 in the Asianballers.net top 25 rankings nationwide. So with the experienced basketball players on this team, they had too much pride to roll over. With Thomas Byrd and league all-star Bo Noung leading the way, they made a comeback and tied the game. They took the lead with under 2 minuetes left in regulation. They built their lead up to 6, but the Challengers did not want to get embarassed and made their own comeback. The Challengers down by 3 with 11 seconds hit a game tieing three to send it into overtime.

With the overtime period about to start the Challengers seemed to be woken up and maybe finally take the pesky Teddy Bears out. but not to be. Bo Noung of the Teddy Bears matched basket for basket against the Challengers attack. There were lead changes back and forth in overtime with the Challengers taking a 1 point lead with less than16 seconds in overtime. The Teddy Bears worked the ball around and they surround Bo (scored 29 points) who was scoring all night. He got the ball to an open teammate who pased to the post to the unlikely heroe Patrick. Patrick made a couple of pump fakes a managed to hit a shot with an up and under move with two seconds left. The Challengers almost won the game with a full court toss that made it to one of their players near the basket, but he missed the  shot! The gym was in shock! The players on the Challengers team looked around at themselves and wondered, what in the world! Goes to show, that in sports, there is always a reason to play. If the Teddy Bears never win another game in the league, they will always remember this game. Teddy Bears 60 - 59 over the Challengers.

Joe Dukes link
http://www.georgiastatesports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=53530&SPID=5655&DB_OEM_ID=12700&ATCLID=1060766&Q_SEASON=2008

Thomas Byrd
http://www.asianballers.net/id63.html

Bo Noung
http://www.borameyonline.com/id63.html