Bingo’s All-Stars’ Steve Burtt Jr. scored 27 points in the loss. (Denis Gostev)
If Sunday’s Fireball championship game is any indication, it’s going to be a wild summer in the city’s many streetball leagues.
In a game that had a mid-August feel rather than early June, X-Men repeated as Fireball champions, rallying past Bingo’s All-Stars, 127-126, in overtime at jam-packed Baruch College in lower Manhattan.
Though Denver Nuggets wing and former Banneker star Gary Forbes earned MVP honors with a game-high 45 points, Smush Parker made the most important basket.
The former Fordham star and Los Angeles Lakers guard who just wrapped up an overseas season in Greece dropped in a pretty running jumper off the glass to beat the shot clock with 8.6 seconds left in the extra session.
It capped a wild final quarter and extra session that saw X-Men rally from a 14-point deficit behind 25 fourth-quarter points from Forbes.
“It was all Gary Forbes on the offensive end,” Parker said. “We all played defense, got key stops.”
“I just attacked,” Forbes said. “I knew they were in the penalty and I tried to attack. I got to the free-thorw line, got easy baskets and tried to put pressure on the defense.”
Before Forbes’ explosive finish, Bingo’s All-Stars dynamic three-guard lineup of Antawn Dobie, Kenny Satterfield and Steve Burtt Jr. was dominant, wreaking havoc in transition and from beyond the arc.
Dobie finished with a team-high 28 points, Burt had 27 and Kenny Satterfield had 25, including seven 3-pointers. Darren Phillip had 23 points, 11 rebounds and four assists for X-Men and had a couple of huge putbacks in overtime and Mike Campbell had 20.
It was a 10-point game with 1:04 remaining after Satterfield’s dagger of a 3-pointer seemed to end it.
“Everybody thought that but us,” Parker said.
Indeed, as Forbes made two free throws, Campbell sank a deep triple, Forbes hit two more at the line and nearly sent the building into a catatonic state after his steal and reverse layup with 19.2 seconds to go.
After Burtt, the former Iona College and Rice star, missed one at the line, Campbell hit a pair from the charity stripe with 7.2 left to force overtime. The lead switched hands five times before Parker’s runner. With Bingo’s All-Stars overplaying Campbell and Forbes, Parker saw an opening and took it.
Dobie, the reigning Nike Streetball performer of the summer who spent the last year playing in Israel, had one last chance, but his runner felt short, though there seemed to be contact. Bingo’s All-Stars were upset at the referees whistle not only on the final play, but for the entire overtime and most of the fourth quarter.
“A lot of contact — the whole fourth quarter was contact, but I guess there was only one team out there,” said Dobie, who shined at McClancy and LIU years ago. “The referees changed the game. We attacked the whole way. … The difference was the calls we were getting in the half, we weren’t getting the same calls in the second half.”
X-Men, meanwhile, head into the heart of the summer league schedule riding high after their second straight Fireball title, the unlimited spring tournament which kicks off the summer season.
“It’s a great feeling to repeat,” Parker said. “I felt like we were the champs but [people considered us] the underdogs.’