Our BC Men's Basketball Teams of the 2000s: Double-Elimination Bracket
We took the results of our draft, fed them into WhatIfSports.com, and simulated a double-elimination tournament.
Taking after the lead of The Athletic’s Vancouver Canucks beat writer team, we drafted Boston College men’s basketball teams composed of players from the last 20 years. Now, thanks to the help of WhatIfSports.com, we’ll be able to actually simulate the results of a three-team, double-elimination tournament to crown one team the champion.
With three teams, we used the results of a Twitter poll asking who drafted the best team to end up with No. 1 Peter, No. 2 Andy, and No. 3 Bradley. You can read about our draft picks, strategy, and rules surrounding picks here.
Here’s how the teams stack up:
We allowed for as many pre-game lineup/rotation changes and used a straightforward double-elimination bracket, starting with the second and third seeds playing each other and advancing to face the top-seed. And with that, the tournament begins!
Game 1: Team Bradley 93, Team Andy 90
Bradley: Ky Bowman. He had a reputation on Chestnut Hill for not backing down from the biggest moments, and that was the case in this first-round matchup. Bowman, despite going just 9-of-20 from the field, dropped a game-high 26 points and buried a go-ahead, game-winning 3-pointer with two seconds left on the clock for the victory. My team also got excellent contributions up and down the lineup, as Dennis Clifford (12 points, 14 rebounds), Craig Smith (17 points, eight rebounds), and Olivier Hanlan (15 points) all impressed. We also got a classic Steffon Mitchell line, as he didn’t score a point but had nine rebounds and seven assists.
Andy: If you told me that Bradley’s team was going to shoot 6-of-20 (30 percent) from deep and 15-of-26 (57.7 percent) from the line, all while turning the ball over 16 times, I would have said that I was kicking off the tourney with a resounding win. Instead, my top-two picks (Troy Bell and Jerome Robinson) underwhelmed, and—despite erasing a five-point deficit in the final minute of regulation—we suffered a heartbreaking first-round defeat. Bell had just 19 points, six below his scoring average, and Robinson was held to a measly seven. Reggie Jackson led the way with 23 points, thanks to five triples, and Joe Trapani chipped in a double-double, but our offense simply traded blows with Bradley’s team—and unfortunately he got the last laugh.
Game 2: Team Peter 89, Team Bradley 81
Peter: Before the game tipped off, I decided to move Louis Hinnant into the starting lineup and move Uka Agbai to the bench in order to better contend with Bradley’s dynamic backcourt of Hanlan and Bowman. And it worked, for the most part. Bowman and Hanlan combined to shoot just 27 percent from the floor, while Hinnant played a game-high 34 minutes and scored 13 points while grabbing six boards and dishing out four assists. Hinnant was one of six players on my team to score in double figures—Tyrese Rice led the way with 20 points—as we closed the game with a 7-1 run to secure a win in our first outing of the tournament.
Bradley: My team was at the bottom of the poll, but suddenly here I was, one win away from a spot in the championship round. Instead, we dug a six-point hole in the first half and couldn’t close the gap in the second. Bowman missed a free throw when he had a chance to tie the game at 79 apiece with three minutes left, and Peter’s team pulled away from there. The biggest issue was guard play, as Bowman and Hanlan combined to shoot just 6-for-22 from the field and neither Kenny Harley or Ryan Sidney turned in much off the bench. The loss wasn’t on Smith’s back, though, as he turned in a strong performance with 25 points, eight rebounds, and three steals. The biggest issue was our perimeter shooting—something I was worried about before the tournament—as we hit just 6-of-17 (35.3 percent) from distance.
Game 3: Team Andy 99, Team Bradley 96
BOX SCORE (Team Bradley is eliminated)
Andy: After losing to Bradley in round one, I went back to the drawing board. I cut down the minutes of both Robinson and Nik Popovic at the small forward and center positions, respectively. I bumped Corey Raji up in the rotation to take some of Robinson’s time at the three. And I increased Bell’s usage rate by 12.5 percent. It worked, and Bradley got a taste of his own medicine: a three-point loss. Only this time, a spot in the final was on the line. Bell certainly played like it. Although he only shot 6-of-17 from the floor, he bullied his way to the charity stripe and scored a team-high 22 points. Trapani had another double-double, Rakim Sanders logged 10 bench points, and—most notably—Robinson totaled 16 points on an efficient 5-of-10 shooting.
Bradley: I’d beaten Andy before, so I was hoping to replicate that performance. Harley had a decent game (13 points) against Peter, so my main adjustment was to bump up his minutes. In a high-scoring game, we almost erased a nine-point deficit in the final nine minutes but came up just short in a tournament-ending three-point loss. Hanlan dropped 32 points with six rebounds and six assists while Clifford had a 19-point, 10-rebound double-double. Hanlan was the only player to hit from distance, going 6-of-9, while the rest of the group went 0-for-4 on limited attempts. Overall, turnovers plagued my side as we racked up 22 to just 13 from Andy’s team. It was a disappointing loss that saw my push for a title come to a sudden close.
Game 4: Team Andy 102, Team Peter 79
Andy: To say my team’s momentum carried into the next round would be an understatement. I liked the way Robinson and Popovic played in the previous outing, so I kept the same lineup. It paid dividends, as Robinson delivered his best performance of the tournament. The Raleigh, N.C. native shot 5-of-7 from behind the arc and finished with 19 points in 23 minutes of action. Raji wasn’t too far behind with 16 points off the bench. Bell and Jackson combined for 38, and even though Popovic fouled out in 15 minutes, Josh Southern held down the fort inside, shooting 2-of-4 and pulling down eight boards. Two straight wins, and one to go.
Peter: I didn’t want to tinker with what worked in the first game, so I left Hinnant in the starting lineup in place of Agbai and hoped to secure a championship. That backfired in a big way. My team actually only trailed, 48-44, at halftime, but was undone by a dismal second half in which Andy put up a whopping 54 points. Hinnant, my secret weapon, went just 2-of-6 from the floor and turned the ball over a pair of times while putting up seven points. Rice did finish the game with 10 points, but shot just 3-of-10 from the floor and 2-of-6 from downtown. Sean Marshall and Jared Dudley provided the lone bright spots, with Marshall finishing with 19 points, and Dudley putting up 14 points and 10 rebounds in a losing effort. To a winner-take-all fifth game we go.
Game 5: Team Andy 96, Team Peter 94
BOX SCORE(Team Andy is the champion!)
Andy: Just listen to this. Trailing by one with two minutes left, Robinson drilled back-to-back 3-pointers to give my team a 94-89 lead. Then, over the course of 32 seconds, Uka Agbai sank a fadeaway jumper, Sean Williams blocked Popovic, and Marshall dished a pass to Dudley for a left corner triple. There were 13 seconds remaining on the clock, and the game was tied at 94. Bell chewed clock on the ensuing possession before banking the game-winner off the glass. Rice got a look out of the inbound, but the desperation shot bounced off the backboard and the front rim. Now that’s quite the championship—simulation or not. I’ll take it. All six of my starters scored in double figures, as did Southern (10 points and four rebounds in 13 minutes).
Peter: Ouch. What a brutal way to end my simulated championship hopes. For the final game, seeking to mix things up, I took Hinnant out of the starting lineup and moved Agbai back in, leaving Jared Dudley and Sean Marshall the task of slowing down Andy’s three-guard starting lineup. Dudley played his best game of the tournament, finishing with 22 points and 13 rebounds on 9-of-14 shooting and nailing a game-tying 3-pointer with just 13 seconds left. It wasn’t quite enough though, as Tyrese Rice missed a shot to send the game into overtime at the buzzer. The frontcourt of Agbai and Williams played decently well in defeat, combining for 27 points and a whopping eight blocks, but as a team we shot just 6-of-18 from downtown, a mark which ended up being the difference in a close game.
Final Takeaways
Andy: My three-guard starting lineup ended working out. It just took a bit of tinkering. I found Robinson to be more effective in reduced minutes, while Bell was productive no matter the usage rate. Jackson was fairly consistent throughout, averaging 17.5 points 5.0 assists per game. Trapani tallied a trio of double-doubles, both Raji and Sanders proved to be valuable reserves, and Southern—the Mr. Irrelevant of our draft—came up big in the most important matchup of the tourney. In hindsight, I could have drafted better at the forward position. But, as is often the case in the NCAA Tournament, great guard play masked my team’s weaknesses.
Peter: We ended up just short of a championship but I thought the versatility of my team played out well. I had five players finish average double figures and a sixth—Hinnant—finish averaging 7.3 points per game. Dudley, my top draft pick, performed as well as could be expected, leading all players in rebounds per game while Williams averaged a whopping 3.3 blocks per game to lead all players in that category. In retrospect, I would have liked another dynamic backcourt scorer—Hanlan was available in round three but I picked Marshall over him and Kenny Walls played just nine minutes a game.
Bradley: I finished with the top-two per game scorers in the bracket—Smith (18.7 points) and Hanlan (18.0 points)—but also had the four of the top five in turnovers per game. My team had a tendency to chuck up shots and play loose with the ball, which I guess could’ve been predicted when you think of how up-tempo guys like Bowman and Hanlan played during their time at BC. In hindsight, I should’ve staggered Hanlan’s minutes more with the likes of Sidney and Harley and used Mitchell’s wide skill set more broadly.
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