BUCS Final 8’s: Leading Scorers & Final Thoughts

The 2011 BUCS Basketball Final 8’s took place last weekend (see Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 recaps) and there were a number of standout individual performers.

Top 20 BUCS Basketball Final 8’s Leading Scorers 2011

(averages across 3 games)

1) Will Scott, Oxford, 26.3 ppg
2) Paul Nelson, Durham, 20.6 ppg
3) Kevin Bulger, Durham, 18.0 ppg
4) Aleks Zimnickas, Worcester, 17.3 ppg
5) Matt Carpenter, Brunel, 17.0 ppg
6) Jamel Felix, Middlesex, 16.6 ppg
7) Adrian Fenyn, Leeds Met, 15.6 ppg
7) Reed Doucette, Oxford, 15.6 ppg
9) Karolis Bauza, Oxford, 15.3 ppg
10) Tomas Politi, Brunel, 14.6 ppg
11) Callum Jones, Worcester, 14.0 ppg
12) Luke Sanders, Worcester, 13.0 ppg
13) Henry Wilkins, Leeds Met, 12.6 ppg
13) Karolis Petkus, LSBU, 12.6 ppg
13) Zoltan Supola, Leeds Met, 12.6 ppg
16) Stephen Danley, Oxford, 12.3 ppg
16) Toby Hutton, Northumbria, 12.3 ppg
18)  Julius Visokas, Middlesex, 12.0 ppg
19) Mike Martin, LSBU, 11.0 ppg
20) Damian Cope, Worcester, 10.0 ppg

Top 10 Individual Scoring Performances

1) Will Scott (Oxford) vs Worcester, 34
2) Aleks Zimnickas (Worcester)  vs Oxford, 29
2) Paul Nelson (Durham) vs LSBU, 29
2) Jamel Felix (Middlesex) vs Northumbria, 29
5) Matt Carpenter (Brunel) vs Leeds Met, 26
6) Kevin Bulger (Durham) vs LSBU, 25
7) Tom Politi (Brunel) vs Middlesex, 24
8) Will Scott (Oxford) vs Leeds Met, 23
9) Adrian Fenyn (Leeds Met) vs Oxford, 22
9) Stephen Danley (Oxford) vs Worcester, 22
9) Will Scott (Oxford) vs LSBU, 22

Notes

• Both Mike Martin and Stephen Danley made it into the top 20 leading scorers of the weekend despite only playing in two out of the three games. If they’d have played in all three, it’s likely they would’ve been top 5.

 

• Interesting to look back at the leading scorers from last year’s Final 8’s and compare. A few players have moved teams, and there definitely wasn’t as many prolific individual performances this year with only one 30+ point scoring performance.

 

• Oxford have four of their starting five in the top 20 leading scorers. Three of those are in the top 10, and if Stephen Danley (16th) had played in their last game, they likely would have had all four in the top 10. They probably had the strongest starting five of any team in the tournament-Danley who played at the University of Pennsylvania (see his player profile here), Reed Doucette, who was at USC (player profile), Will Scott who was at Louisville (player profile), point guard Skomantas Pocius a former Finland junior international and Karolis Bauza, a legit shooting guard from Lithuania. Pity they lacked depth.

 

• Durham’s Paul Nelson, who attended Yale (player profile) led the tournament in dunks-absolute monster.

 

• Brunel’s Matt Carpenter had the top long range shooting display of the weekend, hitting 8 threes against Leeds Met on Sunday.

 

• Only 9 of the top 20 scorers are British. Pretty much all of the best players of the weekend were foreign. Is this harming the development of the game in the UK? Food for thought.

 

• The BUCS Final 8’s weekend, could be one of the premier basketball events in this country-the marketing around it could be a lot better (and at little cost with the power of the internet these days). I have no doubt that you could have a few thousand in attendance at the finals.

 

• The Trophy Final took place over the weekend as well, with both Abderdeens’ Mark Reynolds and Chichester’s Bud Johnston having decent outings with 28 and 30 points respectively.

 

• Huge thanks to all those who were locked in to the Hoopsfix updates throughout the three days, hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! Until next year.