Gus Macker Preview

Here is my first post for the Gus Macker basketball tourney coming up this weekend. The Gus Macker website has posted the brackets so I thought I would start the updating early and get the details posted. If you are not familiar with the Macker it is a 3 on 3 outdoor tournament. Double elimination so everyone is guaranteed 2 games minimum. And for the record we have never gone out in 2 games. It takes place of both Saturday and Sunday. Games go to 15 by 1′s and 2′s (or 30 minutes I think). Bottom line is you keep winning to keep playing. Weather is always a factor and we play the best when it is dry and hot. We are all pretty quick players so the dryer the better. Wet concrete doesn’t work too well for fast feet so we curse the rain when we get it.

There are 4906 teams this year playing up in the Wausau, WI Macker. That is 1225 players. There are 43 divisions or courts. We are on Yellow 2O and there are 8 teams in our division. This is about the fewest we have had before on our court. I think we have had as many as 16 before. Our first game is at 10:00 AM on Saturday. That is pretty good first game so we have a good draw.

With 8 teams on our court the best scenario would be to win 4 games and take the championship. To do that we would have to win 3 on Saturday and then the championship on Sunday. That would be incredible if we could pull it off. What we don’t want to happen is lose the first game. It can he a long, long road back to the championship if you lose the first game. We have done that before only to be too tired to beat the other team in the championship. This year with 8 teams on our court a worst case would make us plan 3 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday to make it to the championship. But we would have to beat the team in the winners bracket twice so it would be 6 games total for victory.

Now six games (worst case) doesn’t seem too bad but keep in mind this is on concrete (parking lot) and there are no refs. It is pretty much call your own fouls. There is what they called a Gus Buster on the court to keep score and resolve disputes. But it can get pretty brutal sometimes. Someone is bleeding just about every year. We can trash talk with the best of them and we have the game to back it up. Some teams call every ticky-tack foul just because they can’t play and don’t want to lose. That can be very frustration which just leads to retaliation fouls and then it all goes down hill from there. But I can bang with the best of them so we hold our own.

Our team is very well rounded. We have had the same team in the Wausau Macker for 17 years. Some teams are all big guys, some are all shooters. But we are right in the middle. I am the tallest at 6’2”. Chris is next at 6’1”. John is about 5’11” and Kent is 5’11” as well. Most of the time we are not the biggest so some team look past us. Do that and we shoot the lights out and get the pick and roll going. Kent, John and Chris are all very good outside shooters. If anyone of them gets hot you can forget about it. I am the big man on the team and either try to get a first step for a lay up, catch a dish for an easy bucket, or score off rebounds. When we get the pick and roll working it is all over. The big teams can’t keep up with us. All of us are quick so we are a pretty hard team to defend against. John is still lightening fast and if a big man is on him he can do layups all day on him. When we are fresh and on the top of our game we are pretty much unstoppable.

So, our 17th year in the Macker begins next weekend. I will be posting daily updates starting on Friday and should have photos to post as well.

Here is the bracket for this year and I will update it on Saturday night with scores from our games. Our team name is BooYa Tribe.

This is the crew from 2007. We took third place last year and got the smallest trophy in the 17 year history of playing. We want a bigger trophy this year! From left to right: Kent, Myself, Chris and John.