Three takeaways from the return of the Green Valley Open League
Josh McCarver
After a hiatus during the fall, the Green Valley Open League is back this season, boasting six teams and some of the best players in all of UH Las Vegas. Its winter season kicked off last night, and there’s plenty to talk about. Here are three takeaways, one from each game.
RudeDogs and Buckets combine to score 259 points
This 47-minute, running-clock game had more points than any NBA game last night; eight more than the Raptors’ 130-121 win over the Thunder. If you look at the top scorers from Week 1, nine of the top 14 played in this game, with all nine of those players scoring 20 points or more. That was led by Rashad Muhammad, who scored 47 points on 19-30 shooting in his UH debut, which came in a losing effort, as RudeDogs came away with a 130-129 win.
Both teams only had five players, and it looks like they decided to spend their energy on the offensive end and rest on defense. The 259 points were scored on 172 shots over the course of the 47 minutes played. That averages out to 5.5 points and 3.7 shots per minute. The craziest part of the game might be the 31 points scored in the three-minute overtime period, meaning there were 10.3 points scored per minute in OT.
The RudeDogs were down by 20 points at halftime and trailed by 30 at one point, as L.C. Comine pointed out in the live stream on the UH Las Vegas Facebook group. They came all the way back and ended up winning by one, as Tony Eackles Jr. hit one of two free-throw attempts with one second remaining to ice the game. This is the second time this week that Eackles Jr. has won an overtime game by one point, as he helped Project X defeat BTE in the Summerlin Open League 86-85 on Monday night. Over the course of 94 minutes this week, he’s compiled 64 points, 16 rebounds and 15 assists.
The Mob are back
The Mob were one of the first dominant franchises in UH Vegas, winning four championships over a three-year run in Summerlin from 2013-2016. They also had one run in the Las Vegas National Tournament in 2014, making it all the way to the championship game.
The namesake is back for the first time in an open league since the Winter 2016 season, this time in Green Valley. While the team name is back, the old roster is not, as the only player on this roster from the Winter 2016 season is L.C. Comine.
They started the season 1-0 after defeating Underdogs 90-72 last night. The key contributors were Jerome Williams (16 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists), Owen Osazuwa (24 points, nine rebounds and four assists) and Hollis Hale (21 points, seven rebounds and seven assists).
They were able to win by 18 without the help of Jordan Cannon, Tomas Sanchez and Andre Vaughn, who will all be key players when present this season.
Josh McCarver dominates in two-point win
It seems like McCarver is excited about the return of the open league to Green Valley, as he was unstoppable last night in a 90-88 win for Flight Vegas. McCarver scored a career-high 47 points on 17-21 shooting from the field and 11-13 from the free-throw line, adding 14 rebounds. This added up to a PPR 54.8, which was the highest in all of UH Nation last night.
It was an incredibly efficient performance from someone who has made a career on being ultra-efficient. His career field-goal percentage of 66% is the second-best in UH history (minimum 50 games played).
The 47 points surpasses his previous career-high of 44 points, which came in a 141-82 win on March 12, 2018 in the Summerlin Open League semifinals.