Midnight Madness Take Nike #makeitcount 3 v 3 Title

Team Midnight Madness (pictured, below), made up of Jeffrey Danchie, Tayo Ogedengbe, Pierre Henry-Fontaine and Darrell Bethune, took the Nike #makeitcount 3 v 3 Title last night, knocking out team Hoopsfix in a quadruple OT semi-final thriller in the process.

The tournament, played on a temporarily constructed court in one of the most iconic locations in the country, with Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament as the backdrop, saw 6 teams battling through two pool games, before advancing to the semi-finals and final stages.

With music playing into the night, a good crowd, on-court lighting and food, Nike once again proved they know how to run an event.

Midnight Madness’ Nhamo Shire a.k.a the Voice of Reason was on the mic, and thought it was the perfect way to start the summer:

“Beautiful location; Big Ben in the background, City Hall, London Eye…amazing. Kinda got us ready for summer basketball, so I’m itchin’ right now! I know it’s only February but I’m looking forward to summer a lot. It was a great tournament.”

And was he happy Midnight Madness won? He didn’t front; “Course I am,” he said, before flashing his trademark smile.

Hoopsfix, featuring NASSA’s Perry Lawson, Derby Trailblazers’ Rishi Kakad, Brixton Topcat Samuel Toluwase and Westminster Warriors young’n Samson Oyediran, rolled through their two pool games before drawing a struggling Midnight Madness team in the semi. The physical contest went to quadruple overtime, with clutch play after clutch play (and controversial call after controversial call!) dragging it out and forcing the game to be decided on sudden death threes.  Darrell Bethune stepped up first for the Madness team, hitting, whilst Rishi came up short sealing our fate.

A worn-down Midnight Madness went on to play MVP in the final, where they scraped out a one point win to take the title.

Notes

• Other than gamewinners, there were no major highlights but all the games were real competitive.
• Huge shout out to Perry, Sam, Rishi, Samson and Jos Smart (coach) for representing the site – couldn’t have asked for a better team.
• Another shout out to Amir Boucenna who was ballin’ out, carrying his team for large parts of the tournament, whilst MVP’s Tom Martin and Tarryn Algar were also standouts.
• Most controversial call of the day came in the Hoopsfix semi-final against Midnight Madness, where Pierre Henry-Fontaine hit an over the head buzzerbeater which appeared to be after the whistle to send it to OT. Need to review the tape on that one!
• The basketball was just one part of the Nike activities for the day, there was also hundreds of runners running from Nike Town, Oxford Street, to the London Eye, and then training club participants who did exercises classes in each pod of the London Eye (yes, Nike hired the whole thing!).
• Green was the theme of the #makeitcount day, and it ended up with the whole of County Hall and the London Eye being lit up in green. Was impressive.
• Great to see an event being put on like this; would love for it to become an annual thing! I think 2012 is going to see a lot more basketball activity than in previous years…thank god for the Olympics.

Did you make it down? What do you think?