Rob Taylor's Week 7 Picks

For your viewing pleasure. Robert Taylor makes his picks for last weeks games. Tim Hoover cameos. Props to Eric Su and Tim Hoover for a good game against Zilla. Frustrating Ty Rashad and T Hailey of Zilla, all game with outstanding in your face defense from half court. T Hailey, commented after the game, as team captains held a post game meal at Bellicinos, "This would have been a different game if we had all of our players there. Cant wait for a rematch."

 

Rob was spot on with his predictions for the early games, but failed to pick the two upsets of the day in the 6:00pm games. As the Rice Birds upset the Samurais, and Ninja Stars loosing a close game to the dark horse team of the GTBA, the Usual Suspects. Next week we will try to provide more pre, post and in-game videos.

GTBA Week 6 Season 4 recap

It has been over a season and a half since our last blog post and since the league is starting to get the new media bug. We have decided to slowly bring back the blogger and twitter sites along with the newly created www.generaltsosbasketball.com home page. If you do not have a twitter or facebook account there are many ways to fallow and contact the league. Big thanks to Basilios Dimitrelias, our leagues website designer and player for the Rice Birds.

Season 3 champions - Panda X won in a thrilling victory over the Crouching Tigers, which finished with the first ever video replay to determine if the final buzzer beater was good. In the end Paul Tan, and Eric Su were able to lead them to there 2nd title. Robby Huang and Brandon Maddox were the finals MVPs.

Season 4 Recap

Season 4 started off fresh with league wide draft that was meant to level the teams, and increase the competitiveness of the teams. Overall the draft was a success as the league continues to offer many close games each week.

Robby Haung, the season 3 finals MVP, who was selected with the first overall pick has been nothing but a contribute and MVP contender each week with his new team the Hidden Dragons. Who look very strong with the emergence of Brandon West who subbed for a few games in season 3 and established himself as a full-time player this year. Captain Robert Taylor, has been extremely outspoken and has a lot of confidence in his two star players. Things are looking bright if Robby and Brandon can continue to light up the 3 point line each week.

(Robby Haung going off for his 11 threes in week 6)

Currently their are 2 teams that are the clear front runners to win this seasons championship. Team Zilla with its not so athletic lineup of big read headed guys, has been nothing but a pleasant surprise for captain T Hailey.

(Zilla 55 - Stars 57, week 4)

The other team that looks to be picking up steam, and the only team to defeat Zilla is the Ninja Stars, led by captain Nick Hailey. The Ninja Stars have quite possibly the most athletic team ever assembled in the GTBA and with some crafty draft night tactics Nick was able to pick up his former Tech Titan HS teammate Stephan Mitchell, who has been featured on a few top 10 highlights with some spectacular dunks.

(No Names will be mentioned in this posterization)

Stay tuned to the GTBA as more blogs will be posted. Video Interviews with players and game day Twitter updates. http://twitter.com/tsosbasketball/

Generaltsosbasketball.com now in testing.

Checkin out the new site. Updates coming soon!

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Season Two Awards

The line ups are calculated using the NBA.com Efficiency Formula with added emphasis on attendance

All-GTBA First Team:

C- Feifei Jiang - Dummy Bears: 12 PPG, 15.6 RPG, 1.6 BPG, 1.6 SPG
F- Paul Tan - EricSu.com: 13.2 PPG, 18.9 RPG, 3.9 APG, 2.4 SPG
F- Robby Huang - EricSu.com: 26.0 PPG, 10.6 RPG, 1.3 BPG, 1.7 SPG
G-Manley Wong - Indy Boys: 19.7 PPG, 2.7 APG, 1.7 SPG
G-Titus Wright - Unusual Suspects: 22.2 PPG, 9.0 RPG, 0.8 BPG, 3.3 SPG, 2.3 APG

Second Team:

C - Bryan Cheng - BumbleBees: 7.3 PPG, 12.1 RPG, 2.1 BPG
PF - Chang Lee - Indy Boys: 10.0 PPG, 12.7 RPG, 0.6 BPG, 1.1 SPG
F - Joe Hughes - BumbleBees: 11.0 PPG, 8.8 RPG, 2.5 APG, 3.0 SPG
G - Thomas Hailey - Godzilla: 11.9 PPG, 10.4 RPG, 4.1 APG, 2.7 SPG,
G - Nick Hailey - Unusual Suspects: 18.6 PPG, 7.4 RPG, 3.8 APG, 2.2 SPG

Third Team:

F - Ty Rashad - BumbleBees: 23.5 PPG, 5.3 RPG, 2.0 SPG
F - Mark Yoon - Indy Boys: 8.9 PPG, 9.1 RPG, 3.3 APG, 1.1 SPG
F - Brian Adams - EricSu.com: 9.8 PPG, 8.5 RPG, 1.3 SPG
G - Paul Kim - Indy Boys: 10.5 PPG, 4.5 RPG, 4.4 APG, 1.9 SPG
G - Gino Calderon - BumbleBees: 22.2 PPG, 3.7 RPG, 2.0 APG

Honorable Mentions: Darrel Sims (UNU), Gabe Smith (ZILLA), Alan Wang (BEARS), Tim Hoover (ZILLA), Xiao Chen (UNU), Mahdi Thompson (BBB), Justin Zhu (UNU), Xiaofan Fu (UNU), Eric Su (ESU)

All-Defensive Team:

C- Bryan Cheng BumbleBees
C - Feifei Jiang Dummy Bears
F - Paul Tan EricSu.com
F- Chang Lee Indy Boys
G - Titus Wright Unusual Suspects
Honorable Mentions: Robby Huang (ESU), Thomas Hailey (ZILLA), Joe Hughes (BBB), Alan Wang (Bears), Mahdi Thompson (BBB), Brian Adams (ESU), Gabe Smith (ZILLA), Anton Lee (Bears)

Finals MVP: Gino Calderon (BBB)
League MVP: Paul Tan (ESU)
Most Improved Player: Eric Su (ESU)
Defensive Player of the Season: Paul Tan (ESU)
Rookies of the Season: Titus Wright (UNU), Robby Huang (ESU)

Rookies 1st Team:

C - Feifei Jiang (BEARS)
F - Joe Hughes (BBB)
F - Ty Rashad (BBB)
G - Robby Huang (ESU)
G - Titus Wright (UNU)

Summer Season Preview II - The Newcomers

The league has expanded to nine teams. And this is its largest season ever.

With the Gummy Bears losing lots of their players to the Taiwan Super League, Alan Wang, Melvin Chung, and Jack Chiang have joined in hand with last year's "Super Sub" Robert Taylor to form the Hidden Dragons. Coach Taylor, a new John Wall groupie, will be overseeing the day to day tasks of the team. Not wasting any time, he had already drafted perhaps the biggest star in league history in Kortea Johnson. The former Usual Suspect and the current Concord University Mountain Lion star player is expected to immediately take this team to the championship game. Expect some posters to be made when the Dragons play. The Dragons had also signed Ty Rashad, and yet released him to Rush Hour for unknown reasons. Again, the mystery surrounding that man is just that, a mystery. New additions Brian and Jalen will also make an immediate impact, where Jalen is considered a poor man's Kortea Johnson.

Meanwhile, Tim Hoover, Calvin Wilson, and TJ Ciochetto moved onto Crouching Tigers, taking half of Godzilla's core with them. With TJ Ciochetto at the helm, each member of the team is guaranteed a bottle of gatorade per game day. Joining them is another sensation and former Usual Suspect Scott Kebo. Kebo is a high flyer who is also dangerous from the outside. Expect great battles when he is matched up with the likes of Robby Huang and Kortea Johnson. The biggest question for this team is, how well will the players mesh? If they can come together, then sky's the limit.

Then there are the other two new teams, the Healthy Veggies, and Rush Hour. The Healthy Veggies will be under the leadership of Shen Liang, who has been training with CCC on a weekly basis, so he's no stranger to the physicality and the hacking. The Veggies will also have a former CCC member, Zhu Xiangfu, who will undoubtedly be the oldest member in the league. A former member of the People's Liberation Army basketball team, Zhu played in the first season for CCC, and pulled down 22 rebounds in a single game, setting the league record. (The record was since broken by Paul Tan) The resumes of other members of the Veggies are still unknown.

Rush Hour will have two familiar faces in former EricSu.com point guard Fan Xu and former Indy Boys center Matt Trettel. Trettel was arguably the best player at his position, averaging 20 points and 13 rebounds per game while leading the Indy Boys to the championship in the first season. Matt Trettel still has not lost a game in this league, who will be the first team to change that? Also joining is the lefty forward Brandon Jones, who stands at 6'2" with a much longer wingspan. The opponents will think twice about taking the ball into that front line. Ty Rashad is on the roster of Rush Hour, yet again, we will never know for sure until the ball is tipped.

There it is, hopefully there will be more records broken in the new season. Only Unusual Suspects Xiao Chen and Darrel Sims have made the only two dunks in league history, with the addition of plenty of high flyers, that will change for sure.

Summer Season Preview I - The Veterans

General Tso's Basketball Association's Summer 2010 season is set to begin after 33 days of off season. This time, it will be officially handled by the Monon Center as part of their summer program.

After a controversial win (the game was wrongfully called with 0.9 seconds left on the clock) against the Unusual Suspects at Conseco Fieldhouse in last season's championship game, the BumbleBees (not Bubble Bees, as one of their teammates still fervently maintained) will begin the defense of the their trophy without their captain Bryan Cheng and their leading scorer Ty Rashad. Cheng is nursing a mysterious and yet perhaps non-existent injury, while conflicting stories have surfaced concerning the reason behind Ty Rashad's departure from the team. Rumors have it that he will join the new team Rush Hour, but in this league, nothing is confirmed until the whistle blows on Saturday. MVP Gino Calderon and new captain Mahdi Thompson will look to carry the team with several new additions, along with their reliable veterans.

The Unusual Suspects will return all of its players with the exception of Nick Hailey and Justin Zhu, both are in Asia suffering the blazing heat at this moment. Captain Xiao Chen is still recovering from the knee injury he suffered before the championship game last season. Dynamic guards Titus Wright and Darrel Sims will both return. Big man Xiaofan Fu will unveil his new post moves that he had been working on against CCC in the off season. Xiao Chen went out of his way to acquire two new additions: Tony Boyd, a versatile defender and a floor leader, and Qing Ni aka QQ, the best female Chinese hooper in the Midwest. That's why Chen was so adamant in making a new rule where any point a female player scores would be doubled. The commissioner and other captains quickly objected to that idea. Despite that, the former Lady Hornet of Beech Grove is still expected to shine in the back court.

EricSu.com is coming back with a new name and a set of new uniforms. Panda Xpress will retain all of its core players plus a new addition in Brandon. Robby Huang, fresh off the North American Chinese Basketbal Invitational in Toronto, is looking to make a few highlights above the rim in addition to his dominance beyond the arc. Last season's regular season MVP Paul Tan is expected to resume his monopoly on the boards. Eric Su and Jun He have improved and will demonstrate that on the court. With the new face lift, will this team have better luck in the playoffs?

Godzilla had an overhaul of its roster that saw its leading scorer Tim Hoover and the energetic Calvin Wilson, along with tough defender TJ Ciochetto joining the new team Crouching Tigers. However, with captain Thomas Hailey finding several able replacements, most notably the former Usual Suspect gunslinger John von Arx, this team will certainly surpass the expectations of most. The only question is that will Gabe Smith be focused on playing basketball before the end of the World Cup on July 11th? And will he be sober?

After a heartbreaking yet also controversial loss to the Bees in the semis last season, the Indy Boys are coming back as Krazy Koreans, or Goons? Losing their star Paul Kim to expansion, they have signed versatile forward Justin Barnett to take some pressure off Chang Lee. With key players Mark Yoon and Manley Wong returning, the inaugural champs are right back in the game, at least on paper. Only question would be, will Manley Wong still have his touch after spending the last month living lavishly in Hong Kong?

In the next post, we will discuss the new teams, some of which are immediately viewed as contenders.

Season 3 Off-Season and News

Season 3 is looking to be the best season yet for the GTBA. This season's draft should bring a lot of talent to the league. Some notable draftees are Kortea' "King" Johnson, Scott Kebo, and John VonArx.
Season 2 league champs the Bumble Bees will be loosing team captain Bryan Cheng and possible starting forward Ty Rashad. The Bees should be able to find some talent to replace the missing pieces as this is one of the deepest drafts in league history.
Some other new changes will be the addition of the first ever offical jerseys for all the teams. Ericsu.com has offically changed the team name to Panda Xpress, also the Dummy Bears have been re-assigned to the new team name Hidden Dragons.
Indy Boyz disjointed with season 2 have decided to not participate this season and will be replaced with a new team, the Crouching Tigers, who will not participate in the draft.

Other News:
League Draft/Assignment Party will be held at 6:00pm, June 12th. Teams will be announced shortly after. For more information contact the GTBA Facebook group.

Season 2 - End of Season recap

Due to a lack of time and not keeping this up to date. Season 3's blog will be much improved.

Seasons 2 league champs the Bumble Bees won in dramatic fashion as Mahdi Thompson drained a 3 foot shot to win by one, over the Unusual Suspects.

Season 2 awards:
MVP - Paul Tan
All other votes are still being calculated.

Week 5 Lines

Favorite ------------------ Line ----------- Underdogs
=====================================
Unusual Suspects --------- -6 ----------- Godzilla
Bumble Bees -------------- -5.5 -----------Indy Boyz
EricSu.com --------------- -25 -------------Dummy Bears

*For recreational use only

Rumors for week 5

Godzilla - Expected to unveil new jerseys for next game. Hopefully its the boost they need to break a 3 game skid.

Ericsu.com- Team Captain Eric Su is seen in the clubs in Taipei with a mysteriously tall woman, possibly a supermodel.

Unusual Suspects- Justin Zhu is scheduled to miss the game. Two other players, Xiaofan Fu and Chase Shao, are still nursing injuries resulted from an off court altercation with Godzilla player Yuchen Yuan. Yuan was unharmed.
Team Captain Xiao Chen may miss the playoffs due to the release of his new album. They are in the process of finding a blue chip recruit as well.

Dummy Bears-Blue Chip Recruit Kortea "King" Johnson rumored to join team before playoffs.

Bumble Bees- Ty Rashad went home with a sore calf after a pick up game Tuesday night.

Indy Boyz- Planning on starting the game with only two players this week they feel so confident.

Week 4 Game Lines

Favorite ------------------ Line ----------- Underdogs
=====================================
Indy Boyz ---------------- -33 ----------- Dummy Bears
Unusual Suspects ------ -6.5 -----------Bumble Bees
EricSu.com -------------- -4 -------------Godzilla

*For recreational use only

Robert Taylor's post-game interview

Big Rob explaining what it was like to sign a 22minute contract with the short handed Bumble Bees and step in and guard the leagues tallest player.

Week 3 Shot of the Week

Xiaofan with a Double Pump Miracle

Week 3 Power Rankings

ESPN Power Rankings

1. Unusual Suspects 3-0
2. Bumble Bees 2-1
3. Indy Boyz 2-1
4. EricSu.com 1-2
5. Gozilla 1-2
6. Dummy Bears 0-3

Injury Update!

On Friday, Justin Zhu of the Unusual Suspects suffered a potential season ending injury to his ankle while participating in a pick up game near the airport. MRI is scheduled for Monday.

If Zhu is indeed diagnosed to be out for the season, and with star guard Nick Hailey transferring to the Philippines on May 13th, the future of the Unusual Suspects is worrisome.

Week 3 Rumor Mill

Team Zilla - Reports that Gabe Smith is reaching near 100% recovery on his sprained ankle suffered in pre-season workouts.

Ericsu.com - After off the court issues Eric Su was released from his over night visit at the city jail.

Unusual Suspects - Rumors have been circulating that Nick Hailey will be leaving the team to pursue opportunities to play in the Philippines.

Dummy Bears - Unreliable sources claim that they are working out a deal to have Danny Granger added to there roster because the Pacers failed to make the playoffs.

Bumble Bees - Ty Rashad has been spotted at the local clubs around Indy. Let's hope this doesn't lead to trouble down the road.
Bryan Cheng was spotted in Orlando on Friday with some mysterious woman. Chances are he will not play this Saturday.

Indy Boyz - No news, but are expect to show up for tomorrows autograph session located at the scorers table before tip-off.

Season 2, Week 2 Recap

Tipping off weeks two action was the Unusual Suspects against the Dummy Bears with the newly acquired Fei Fei at center who was released after a break out game with Team Zilla last week. The game started out with a 20 to 0 start by the Suspects, and ended with and equally large point discrepancy. Despite the monster stats of 14 points, 16 rebounds, 2 blocks, and 3 steals from Feifei, his team was not able to put up much of fight for this seasons preseason favorite.

The Suspects played relaxingly throughout the game, Nick Hailey finished with 21 points and a career high 16 rebounds, resulting in his first double-double. He also led the team in assists and steals with 7 and 4, respectively. Captain Xiao Chen with 15 points and 12 rebounds, on a horrid shooting performance (29.2%). Justin Zhu also gets his first double double with 12 points and 10 rebounds, plus 5 assists and 4 steals.

FeiFei pictured with headband crashing the boards

Game two featured Indy Boys who looked to bounce back from last week’s loss against the Robby Huang-less team Ericsu.com. Without the league’s leading scorer Ericsu.com managed to still be competitive behind commissioner Paul Tan's 19 rebounds and Brian Adam's 18 points. The game was back and forth up until the last 5 minutes of the second half when Paul Kim and Chang Lee knocked down some big three point baskets to lead them to their first win of the season. After missing three straight games dating back from last season, team captain Manley Wong returns with a strong performance of 23 points on near 60% shooting, and he was perfect from beyond the arc.

The final game of the day Godzilla versus the Bumble Bees looked like a good game on paper, but how would it shape out. Godzilla was without big man Fei Fei and Bumble Bees back to full strength with Gino Calderon running point. Despite horrible outside shooting from Zilla’s Calvin Wilson and T Hailey (combined 3-25), the lead by the Bees was held to three at by half. As the game went on and the short handed Zilla team seemed to run out of gas and the Bees where able to muscle inside thanks to hustle baskets by Bryan Cheng and a great 2-3 zone, as the Bumble Bees got their first win of the season by a large margin.

Top performers this week:

BBB: Ty Rashad: 23 pts, 2 blocks; Bryan Cheng: 12 pts, 13 rebounds, 4 blocks, 6 assists.
Zilla: Gabe Smith: 17 pts, 12 rebounds; Tim Hoover: 15 pts; T Hailey: 14 rebounds.

IND: Manley Wong: 23 pts, 58.8% FG, 2-2 3FG
SU: Brian Adams: 18 pts, 4-9 3FG; Paul Tan: 15 pts, 19 rebounds

UNU: Nick Hailey: 21 pts, 16 rebounds, 7 assists, 4 steals; Justin Zhu: 12 pts, 10 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 steals; Xiao Chen: 15 pts, 12 rebounds.

Season 2, Week 1 Recap

Season two kicked off with what might be a record that will be hard to break. Robby Huang of Ericsu.com, broke the leagues single game scoring and 3-pointers made records in a win over the Bumblebees, 66 -51. The game was relatively close but Robby could not be contained from behind the arc making, 12 of 22 and grabbing 14 rebounds. Needless to say he has made a strong impression for Rookie of the season. Also an emerging rookie was Ty Rashad who also had a good game in the loss, scoring 27 points and getting to the free throw line with regularity.

The defending champs Indy Boyz looked to keep an undefeated team record in tack played the newly revamped and healthy Unusual Suspects team lead by Xiao Chen. In the off-season Xiao was able to sign guards Titus Wright, and Darrel Sims, giving the Suspects one of the most explosive backcourts. Manly Wong, might have been able to proved the boost the Indy Boyz needed but he was a no show. Paul Kim season one’s MVP was held to just 18 points as the Unusual Suspects won 63 – 52.

The third game of the season featured 2 new franchises the Dummy Bears led by Melvin Chung and Team Godzilla lead by Calvin Wilson. Godzilla had an overall excellent performance without much of threat from the Dummy Bears. Team Godzilla looked strong with big men Yuchen Yuan, Feifei Jiang and Gabe Smith in the paint for most the game, looking like this could be the best big man lineup in the history of the league. Tim Hoover led Zilla with 16 points with the win over the Bears 68 – 43.

Welcome to the GTBA Blog

If you would like to help contribute to the site let me know. I plan to post when I have some time at work or I get really bored when I'm at home. Expect a week 1-2 recap very soon.