WEEK 15 POWER RANKINGS

WHERE YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS OURS

The Wasatch takes on the World in the 4th Annual WFBL All-Star game. In 2008, the "Best" (Underdogs) defeated the "Rest" 5-3-1; in 2007, the World defeated the Wasatch 5-3-1; and in 2006, the Dynamo Dropouts defeated the Fantastic Finishers 6-3.

Three more weeks.

That's all that remains in the 2009 WFBL regular season. And while some teams are all but eliminated from contention (I see you, Bayside, St. George and Rigby!), almost everyone else has a shot at the postseason, with five teams in the running for their respective conference championships and subsequent first-round byes. As for the Power Rankings, the "#1 Musical Chairs" continues this week, as the Gators are back in the top spot. Really, your guess is as good as ours as far as how this will all play out.

Team, Rank, (Previous), Overall, (Last Week)


1 (3) 74-55-6 (6-2-1)
The Gators have but one loss in their last eight match-ups, going 45-22-5 over that span. But despite their recent fortune, there is a black cloud hovering over everything Twin Falls does (which really isn't a surprise, if you've ever been to Twin Falls), due to the recent allegations that Kobe Bryant is a cheap-shot jerk. I'm sure the Commissioner will be following this closely.


2 (5) 75-54-6 (5-4-0)
After losing three of four, the Strats seem to have righted the ship, winning their last two. Yao seems to be healthy again, but heaven help Nephi if he should go down again! No time to rest for Justin Banks, as he has the honor of coaching the Wasatch All-Stars this weekend.


3 (4) 77-54-4 (3-4-2)
With the A-Boms going down mightily, the Igs had a great chance to widen the gap between first and second place. 'Caibo not only lost to a SnowBees team that was playing without their point guard, but they also squandered one of LeBron's best statistical weeks of the season. Having now lost three of four, the schedule after the break only gets tougher: at Park City, Zermatt, at Udorn.


4 (2) 75-57-3 (2-6-1)
The Abominables haven't been this decimated by injuries since the fatefull 0-9 Concludings loss to Bayside in 2007. Paul should be ready to go after the break (possibly even for the All-Star game), but losing Al Jefferson is a serious blow. How will Barnes handle the stunning turn of events? Is it ever safe to count the A-Boms out?


5 (1) 75-57-3 (2-7-0)
I'm sure if you would have told Dave Barton at the beginning of the season that with only three weeks left his Sundancers would be a mere 1.5 games out of first place in the Wasatch Conference, he would have taken it. Two losses in the last three weeks mean the margin for error is much smaller. That Week 18 throwdown against Nephi could very well decide the conference.


6 (7) 63-68-4 (4-3-2)
Apparently there's some team operating out of Salt Lake City? And they have only one loss in the last seven weeks, going 37-22-4 in that time? And they are technically not eliminated from the playoffs, just 11.5 games behind Park City? Really? Where were we when all this happened?


7 (9) 62-73-0 (7-2-0)
Boy you wanna talk about a team that's hard to figure out, let's discuss the New York Kings. After pummeling Park City last week, and thanks to some timely losses from Udorn and Richmond, the Kings are a mere 3.5 games behind Udorn for the final World playoff spot. That Week 18 matchup against Udorn looks real nice! (Side note: the scheduling hobgoblins sure did a great job this year. Week 18 is gonna be intense!)


8 (6) 65-69-1 (4-5-0)
The good news for Udorn is that their first ever playoff appearance is absolutely in their own hands. A winnable game against Rigby precedes the aforementioned visit from New York. Of course, they'll have to get past the Iguanas in the final week of the regular season, but we all know how well the Igs do in that type of situation.


9 (11) 54-77-4 (5-3-1)
Now technically, Bayside has the worst record in the league. But they have been semi-decent the last four weeks, losing only once in that span. The Tigers have yet to put together a win streak, however (they have a couple of ties after wins), and are also not officially eliminated from the playoffs (in fact, they're closer—9.5 games back—than the SnowBees). A trip to Nephi after the break may take care of that, however.


10 (12) 54-73-8 (6-3-0)
Finally a reason to cheer in St. George, as the U-Dogs' win over Richmond puts and end to their four-week winless streak. Now it's time to play spoiler, with games against both the A-Boms and the Gators on the sched. There's always next year, St. George.


11 (8) 56-75-4 (3-5-1)
Rigby's latest loss, a 3-5-1 disaster at the hands of Bayside, just about puts the nail in the coffin. The good news is, despite being a mere game out of last place, the Trojans can still set their sights on top seed in the Consolation Round, being only seven games behind Salt Lake. This is the part of the season the Power Rankings hates.


12 (10) 58-76-1 (3-6-0)

Fun fact: Out of 15 weeks, the Butchers have been victorious only four times. Granted, two of those were 8-1 demolitions. But since those consecutive blowouts, the former postseason Cinderellas have lost seven straight, and now likely have no shot at the playoffs.

THIS WEEK IN THE WFBL: WEEK 15

PAUL INJURED—SOMEWHERE, AN ANGEL LOSES ITS WINGS; KINGS HARNESS EMERALD POWER, KNOCK OFF 'DANCERS; DESPITE WIN, BAYSIDE STILL SUCKIEST IN WFBL

Injuries to Chris Paul (left, holding crotch) and Al Jefferson (right, holding knee) sent Abomi-Nation in a tailspin. Hey wait, is that Adams smiling in the background?

CHRIS PAUL GOES DOWN, A-BOMS NOT PANICKI....WHAT? BIG AL TOO? NOOOOOOOOOOO!

TWIN FALLS (AP)—Early this week, the story for the second-place-and-closing Abominables was going to revolve around how they hung tough without their All-Star and 3-time weekly EBP, Chris Paul, who went down with a groin injury.

That was before Sunday night.

Just when Abomi-Nation had resigned themselves to losing a bit of ground to the Iguanas, while knowing that the reigning Concludings EBP would be back after the All-Star break, Al Jefferson, quite possibly the second-best player for the Abominables (and better than a lot of guys on YOUR team) suffered a torn ACL in his right knee during last week's 2-6-1 loss to the Gators.

"This is almost more than I can handle!" said an emotional Rashard Lewis, Zermatt's third-best player. "This moves me up to 'second-best', and possibly 'best' should CP3 not make it back for a while. That's just a lot of pressure."

The A-Boms have reason to worry. Jefferson has been the difference between Zermatt being just "pretty good" and "slap-ya-mama good". And with three weeks left till the playoffs, the defending champs were ready to make the move to "groin-grabbingly awesome". Oh the ironies.

"We've got to move past this," said coach Ben Barnes, who we don't need to tell you is also the league's commisioner and handles quite a bit of its public relations. "What happened happened. No need complaining about something you can't change. Having said that, and I don't want to insinuate foul play, but I find it interesting that a week ago Kobe takes out Bynum's knee and this week, both Paul and Big Al go down."

"Hey man, I don't know what he's talking about," said Kobe, after a painfully forced ten seconds of laughter. "I mean, my fist was there first, Paul shouldn't have run into it. And as for Big Al, I think we all know that it was a simple coincidence that he landed awkwardly on my foot. I mean, you couldn't intentionally tear someone's ACL if you tried a hundred times. And I should know."

So what lies in store for the A-Boms? There's really no way to know for certain. One thing, according to Barnes, is for certain.

"Kobe is a jerk of the highest order."

IGUANAS LOSE TO UNIDENTIFIED YET FAMILIAR-SMELLING OPPONENT

SALT LAKE CITY (AP)—When Los Iguanas de Maracaibo arrived in Salt Lake early last Monday, they thought it was to play a 9-game series against the SnowBees. "That's what the schedule say," center Mehmet Okur said in broken English, since he's from another country. "But when we arrive in arena, arena empty. No fans, no SnowBees, no nachos."

"We started to think maybe we'd read the schedule wrong," added forward LeBron James, who speaks English natively and is much easier to understand.

Adding to the confusion was the fact that SnowBees owner Ted "Beekeeper" Barnes recently imposed a media lockout, refusing to allow members of the press to have access to his team. As a result, local news outlets had been forced, reluctantly, to ignore the SnowBees.

"That's what was really confusing," James said. "I've played before sparse crowds in Salt Lake before. And there have been times when the SnowBees players—and even the nacho vendors—showed up late. But usually there's at least a two-inch column in the paper about the SnowBees, often written by an intern and buried on the last page of the sports section, sandwiched between a teeth-whitening ad and an article about Utah State. But this week, nothing! We were beginning to wonder if the SnowBees had suddenly ceased to exist. Sounds like the Aggies are doing pretty good, though."

But the Iguanas are basketball players, and there they were in basketball shorts on the regulation-size SnowHive Court at Mr. Mac Arena. "So we decided to play a pickup game."

That's when five mysterious-looking gentlemen arrived, also in basketball shorts, but wearing sunglasses to hide their identities. "One of them said, 'We'd like to challenge you to a series of nine games over the next seven days, during which we will not keep score, and the results of which will not be reflected in the standings, so you need not exert yourselves too much,'" James remembers. "I suggested we shoot for teams, but they kind of looked at each other nervously and said they'd rather stay on the same team."

The Iguanas agreed to the friendly best-of-nine and soon found their incognito competitors to be worthy opponents. The Iguanas were true to their word, however, and did not play up to their usual ability. "On at least half a dozen occasions," said guard Ray Allen, "I let my guy past me, thinking to myself. 'No, stop it, Ray. You promised not to play hard. Remember, this is just a friendly. Nobody's keeping score.'"

"There were several times when I took ill-advised shots, which is against my nature," said forward Paul Millsap, who, it was somehow determined, shot an uncharacteristic 36.4% from the field. "But if felt OK about it, since we weren't keeping score."

Imagine their surprise, then, the following Monday when they found themselves with a 4-3-2 loss that was, after all, reflected in the standings. They now head into the All-Star break wondering who those mysterious victors could have been.

"I swear the tall one smelled like Dirk Nowitzki," Millsap said. "But I can't say for sure because of those sunglasses. I guess it could have been anyone."

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AROUND THE WFBL

Kings 7, Sundancers 2
After unsuccessful attempts to add Sonic the Hedgehog to his roster, Kings owner TJ Barnes recently offered Sonic a job as an assistant coach, taking advantage of a loophole in league rules mandating that all players must be real but that coaches need not. Other teams may soon be tempted to add imaginary woodland creatures from other planets to their coaching staffs too, as Sonic's first week holding the clipboard was a roaring success, leading the Kings to a stunning 7-2 upset of Park City. Guard Carmelo "Dramatic" Anthony gives all the credit to his new hairy blue mentor: "Before the series he gathered the team and told us about the time back on his home planet Mobius when the chaos emeralds, which hold beauty and life in delicate balance when properly controlled, fell into the hands of the evil Dr. Robotnik, who disregarded the fundamental principles under which the chaos emeralds are controlled and tried to use their awesome power for his own selfish purposes. The result was, well, chaos. Only by running really fast and outsmarting Dr. Robotnik and his henchmen was Sonic able to reharness the power of the emeralds and restore Mobius to its peaceful state.

"Well, obviously, that's all Coach Sonic needed to say. We all looked at each other, and we knew that all season long we've each been misusing our personal 'chaos emeralds,' if you will. Right then we kind of silently vowed to control the chaos inside each of us, that harmony and balance may prevail. I really don't think we're going to lose another matchup now that we've had this awakening."

Tigers 5, Trojans 3, Your Mom 1
With three weeks left in the regular season, five teams are fighting each other tooth and nail for the right to be called "worst in the WFBL". Last week, two of those teams stated their respective cases, as the Rigby Trojans took on the Bayside Tigers. Rigby lost 3-5-1, thereby closing the gap in the standings. Rigby is now a mere two games back for the worst record in the league. "At this point, we're just happy to be in the running for some sort of title," said Rigby's Joe Johnson. "No one ever talks about you if you're second-to-last or third-to-last. But last place? You'll always be in the record books."

"That Joe Johnson's right, you know," said Bayside's Baron Davis. "And we should know. We've been first and we've been dead last, and guess what? When I say 'Bayside' you say 'Tigers' right? Everyone knows who we are. You can't buy that kind of publicity."

Stratagem 5, Jai-Rai 4
As teams continue to jockey for playoff position in their respective conferences, the perennially short-handed Nephi Stratagem had just enough to eke out a 5-4 victory against the incessantly so-so Udorn Jai-Rai. With the win, Nephi managed to retake first place from Park City while also holding off another push from Twin Falls. And with yet another close loss, the Jai-Rai have once again proven that they lack the ability to put teams away, though it does seem they have finally pulled away from Richmond in the battle for the 3rd and final playoff spot in the World. (Or was it the other way around? No matter.) Some league experts have speculated that not having Richmond in their rear view mirror (closer than they appear) might prompt something other than Udorn's special brand of complacency in the face of adversity that team devotees have come to embrace like a soft pillow. But never fear, now the Kings sit only 3.5 games behind them, giving the Jai-Rai plenty more opportunities on which to not capitalize in the few remaining weeks of the regular season. A little urgency might be in order though, as only one team will earn the chance to get decimated in the World Conference semifinals.

Underdogs 6, Butchers 3
Excerpt from an exclusive interview between the AP and Truman Barnes, 6-year-old owner of the St. George Underdogs, while the AP was making dinner and Truman was helping set the table.

AP: So, Truman, your Underdogs got some revenge against the Richmond Butchers last week, didn't they?

TRU: That's great! What does "revenge" mean?

AP: Richmond beat you guys last year in the playoffs, even though you were the number-one seed and had a first-round bye, remember?

TRU: I don't really, but I'm sure it's great!!!

AP: Well, that's not the great part. The great part is that even though you've only won four times in 16 weeks since then, two of those wins were against the Butchers. So you're getting them back for beating you. That's called revenge.

TRU: Hooray! I LOVE revenge!
MRS. AP (from an adjoining room): What did he just say?

AP: Oh. Um, actually, Truman, getting revenge isn't nice. Your team should have forgiven the Butchers and become friends with them. Don't ever let me catch you doing that again.

TRU: Basketball's kind of confusing sometimes.

AP: I know.

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WEEK 14 EBP WINNER
Chris Paul, Zermatt