MONTVALE, NJ: It's Playoff Time

After seven weeks of competition, the inaugural regular season of Montvale UHoops is in the books. With some teams surging and others struggling to find their identity, a postseason full of surprises awaits.

In the final night of regular season action, The Ball Hogs became the league’s second five-win team, Team Randy claimed its second victory in as many weeks and Just the Tip scored its first win in the nick of time. The lone team who did not play, Old School, is perhaps the odds-on favorite to win the league title with just one loss thus far.

After losing their first game of the season, The Ball Hogs won their fifth in a row and will enter the playoffs as one of the hottest teams in the league. In their convincing 65-46 victory of Victorious Secret, Brian Perez, Sam Katz and Alexis Drullunsky combined to outscored VS by themselves. The Ball Hogs jumped out to an early 14-6 lead and never looked back.

The story for Victorious Secret continues to be the offensive struggles. They’ve lost three in a row, and haven’t scored more than 54 points in a game in the process. A woeful shooting display behind the arc did not help matters. While Vinnie Graff led the way with 20 points, he hit just 1 of his 14 three-point tries. All together, the team missed 20 of 21. If they have any hope of moving on in the playoffs, Victorious Secret is going to have to find some better shooting and balance.

With Adrian Woodard leading the way, Team Randy is suddenly a viable postseason threat. They won their second game and handed Team Justin its second loss with a 54-46 final. Woodard was the story of this one, single-handedly outrebounding Justin with 22 boards and making an astounding 14 of 19 field goals. While Justin jumped out to an early advantage, Team Randy tied up the game by the half and built a lead from there. Jesse Joudanin put up 18 points and 7 rebounds in a losing effort, as Team Justin could not keep up down the stretch with five players having to play the entire game for the short-staffed group.

The final action of the night featured a few teams struggling to find their way. In a matchup of two shorthanded squads, Just the Tip entered the win column by handing Team Bryan its fifth straight defeat. With just 77 combined points between them, the game was far from pretty. Nevertheless, Just the Tip did just enough by shooting 31% vs. Team Bryan’s 23%. While Tom Alexiou did his best to keep Bryan in it with a double double (10 points and 18 rebounds), there just wasn’t enough offense to keep Just the Tip winless.

Can either of the two clubs make it out of the first round of the playoffs? With a combined 2-10 record, it would most certainly be considered an upset…But stay tuned!