Week 1 - Deja vu all over again?

Bill Krieger... Feb 14, 1999

Anyone remember last season? It appears that West Chicago and Aruba do... The number 1 and 2 teams, respectively, in the NIBL last year romped to easy victories. The bottom-feeders (sorry, my thesaurus is broke) from last year, Matunuck, Shorewood, and Baghdad continue to blow, er ah struggle.

West Chicago beat up the girly-men from Sue Shitty by more than 140 points. That means even if Elk Grove had lent Sioux Chris Webber last week, the Salsa still would have lost. Oh, by the way, Chris Webber set a new NIBL 1 game-week record of 118 points! The old record was 112 points by Tim Duncan last year.

And who did Chris Webber beat up on? None other than the NIBL Champion Manila DogEaters. Manila has some problems (I can hear the weeping out there) with rotten guard play (Jeff Hornacek and Brevin Knight combined for 75 points last week) and now Chuckles Barkley going down for a month. Ouch. Is this a rebuilding year for the current champs?

Aruba and Walla Walla, two playoff teams from last year, played patty-cake last week. Many doubted the ability of Aruba to bounce back from the retirement of a certain M Jordan, Chi. Michael is out in Aruba, but Scottie combines with Hakeem as part of Aruba's Houston Rocket connection. Aruba victory.

What about the newbies? Well, Bolingbrook got an unpleasant surprise from Jason Kidd on the last NBA game of the week. Kidd racked up 36 NIBL points to push Matunuck to a squeeker 9 point win. I doubt either team will be celebrating though, with a final score of 216-207, both Matunuck and Bolingbrook would have lost to any other team in the league this week. Oh yeah, and don't tell Matunuck that Shaq is day-to-day... until you put away all the sharp objects in reach.

Things are much happier in Joliet. The Durts Miami connection of Mourning and Hardaway looked strong in tallying 336 points. Cheer up Baghdad... at least Tim Duncan isn't hurt. But, Joliet could have a strong team this year... if they can get Who Grant out of their starting lineup.

You knew that the biggest talker in the draft (humble author excepted) was going down. Diablo got raped by the Tools, 321-249. Grant Hill has decided to let his mates on the Piston gobble up more precious NIBL points this year... to the Spawn dismay. We all know Cap City will be around .500 when the year is over, so let's move on.

Vegas 306, Shorewood 241... Hey Shorewood - Get Malone the ball more! I shouldn't make fun, because Malone racked up a sweet 100 points this week. However, fantasy mimics reality, Malone's supporting cast let him down. The Vermins win, and I'll bet Tommy expects more than 62 points out of David Robinson in the weeks to come... until he gets injured that it.

Yow, Bill

PS - Sorry for the extra sarcasm this week... I'm doing this pre-first-cup-o-coffee. Ugh.

PPS - Please note the Roster moves link above. Check this out to see the players that have been scooped up, and therefore players that have been release and are now available.