Hoops for the Cure Championship: Flight 43, Team Carolina Silver 31

Triangle Flight won the Hoops for the Cure title with a 43-31 win over Team Carolina Silver on Sunday afternoon at Net Sports. This was a much tougher contest than Friday night's initial meeting between the two teams. In this one, Team Carolina completely committed to the offensive backboards, and while they shot poorly from the field, they shot so often that some were eventually bound to go in.

That helped them build an early first-half lead, as the Flight started cold from the field. But Shammond played some game-changing minutes and was able to convert a couple of transition buckets to get the Flight offense going. This time around, Team Carolina was much more efficient against the Flight pressure, committing just 15 turnovers.

That forced the Flight to spend some time in the halfcourt offense against the Team Carolina zone, and with some of the normal perimeter shooters starting a little chilly and foul trouble throughout the lineup, it felt like the offense had trouble getting started. That changed a couple minutes into the second half, however, as Shaun knocked down a long jumper, and then Brady caught fire, scoring nine of his 10 points in the second half and making his final four field goals, including a three-pointer.

Flight ended the game on a 17-5 run and celebrated with pictures--one goofy and one serious. In case you can't tell the difference, the goofy one is above and the serious is below. Or maybe that's backwards.

P.S. You can now remove your wristbands and place them in your safe deposit box since they are apparently made of 24K gold.

Shot of the day: Team Carolina had tied the score at 26 midway through the second half. That's when ace perimeter defender Dominic somehow managed to strip the Silver point guard near midcourt. He then proceeded to gather the loose ball and loop a perfect hit-ahead pass to Brady, who navigated through two defenders to convert the breakaway layup and give the Flight a 28-26 lead they would not relinquish.

Big on the boards: Chalk up a double-double for Brady, who pulled down 10 rebounds to go with his 10 points. Isaac, meanwhile, had a ferocious 14 rebounds and narrowly missed a double-double (he also had nine points). 

Defensive award: I have no stats whatsoever to back this up, so this is completely scientific and inarguable. It felt like Shammond was very disruptive defensively during a key stretch of the game, as his active hands helped bring the Flight back from an early deficit. He coupled the defensive effort with six points and seven rebounds in his best all-around game of the weekend.  

Stat of the day: A testament to how much Team Carolina controlled the backboards: they had 14 more shot attempts than the Flight (to put that into perspective, the Flight was averaging six more shot attempts per game than their opponents over the first three games of the tournament). Fortunately, Team Carolina made just 19.7 percent of their whopping 61 attempts. 

Championship box score

                         1st     2nd      Total
TC Silver         15      16          31

Flight                22      21         43

Field goal shooting

TC Silver 12-61 (19.7%)

Flight: 19-47 (40.4%)

Free throw shooting
TC Silver 5-15 (33.3%)

Flight 4-12 (33.3%)