Celtics Comeback falls Short in Championship Game

Tulsa Celtics
Down 12 points to the Jammers in the second half, the Celtics mounted a great comeback and tied the game at 36-36.

Marvin Ebigwu's 3 point shot in the last minute made cut the Jammers lead to 46-43, but was not enough as we finished off a superb tournament by losing 47-43 in the Championship game.

It's Super Sunday, and time to watch the commercials,,,, I mean the game. GO PATS!!!

Celtics Shoot Down Eagles to Reach Finals

Tulsa Celtics
The Celtics fought back from an opening round loss to reach the finals of the Hardwood Heartbreaker by shooting down the Eagles 52-39.

Marvin Ebigwu took over at crunch time and made 3 great assists to spark the Celtics to the victory. It was a great team effort as the Celtics quick passing repeatedly found the open man for high percentage shots. Wise was a bull inside; Maguire, Morton, Ebigwu and Walch provided a two guard front and McIlroy and Lee patrolled the baseline.

Awesome defense on the two-headed monster of Alan Santos and Matt Reynolds provided the key to slowing down the Eagles. Ebigwu, Walch and Maguire made it very difficult for the quick guard duo to break down our defense.

Yours truly, the Coach, picked up his first technical in about 4 years. Jerrod and Sean came down with a defensive rebound and the ref immediately called a TRAVELING on us..a turnover. I quickly, and loudly, yelled to the official to let him know that, "neither player moved their pivot foot.".....No offering of glasses, no cuss words, just pointing out what I saw. I was awarded a Technical AND an opportunity to SIT IN A CHAIR the rest of the game instead of my normal position of standing on the sideline.

Later in the game, this same referee educated me that "any dual-possession (by the same team) is automatic traveling." It does not make sense, but I will check with other officials to find out if it's true.

Celtics TOPPLE Tahlequah Tigers

Less than 12 hours after a Late Night punking of Ponca, the Celtics awoke on this SUPERBOWL Sunday to face the tall Tahlequah Tigers and their 6'4" 8th grader named Qualls, whose father helps Coach the Tigers in addition to his regular job as Head Coach for Tahlequah High School.

Jarred Wise was a beast in the first half as he repeatedly powered inside to score. Several moves were reminiscent of his favorite player, the SHAQ man himself. Tigers seemed to FLY off of Jarred's body as he attacked the basket.

Brock Morton did not start, but when he entered the game he wasted no time as he nailed his first three 3-Point shots in the first half. Tahlequah kept scoring though and we held just a nine point halftime advantage.

Tahlequah exploited our box and one defense as several of the Tigers hit four consecutive threes and all of a sudden we had some TIGERS on our tail. In fact, Tahlequah grabbed a 50-48 lead late in the game. We went to a man to man defense, Matt Maguire hit one three, Trevor Walch sank two more, and our defense stiffened and we took over the last 3 minutes to notch a 59-52 victory.

Cody Lee and Sean McIlroy played solid defense and Cody hit a three and made some great inside moves. Marvin Ebigwu made key steals while handling and distributing the ball to the open man.

In the "winners" bracket game, the Tulsa Jammers handily defeated the Eagles to move into the 4:10 pm championship game. The Eagles and Celtics square off in the THIRD PLACE game to see who goes to the finals, at 1:50 pm.

Celtics PUNK Ponca!!!

Late Night at the ORU Aerobic center had the CELTICS squared off with Ponca City Rebels. The Celtics easily destroyed the REBELS by a score of 60-37. We play next round in 9 hours against the Tahlequah HEAT. Brock, Jarred, Trevor, Matt M, Cody, Sean and Marvin played for the Celtics.

Marvin looked extremely sharp with his passing, ballhandling and shooting. Cody had some nice athletic moves inside. Jarred played like baby Shaquille O'Neal. Matt M. had multiple steals and took care of the ball.

We had three players come out of the game because of injury; a cut lip, a hit in the face, and a poke in the eye gave Trevor, Marvin and Sean a short recovery time on the bench. We used a Yo-Yo, 1-2-2, a box and one on a really superb player from Ponca and some man to man.

Eagles advance to face Jammers

The Eagles won two games and will square off tomorrow morning against the Jammers. Tonight at 10 pm, the Celtics meet Ponca City Rebels who lost by 12 to the Eagles this afternoon. Taking three Celtics to the Tulsa University - Boise State game to get warmed up for our LATE NIGHT at ORU game.

Round One: We got JAMMED!

The Jammers offensive rebounding and Celtics terrible first half shooting percentage helped the Jammers come away with an easy, but hard fought victory. Celtics finished the last few minutes with four players on the floor as two players fouled out. We actually cut a 20 point lead down to 12 and played hard until the finish.

We play tonight at 10 PM and MUST win to have a chance at the Championship which most likely would feature a return matchup with the Jammers. We will play either the EAGLES or Ponca City tonight.

Hardwood Heartbreaker

We play our first game in two hours; The Celtics welcome our two newest players who are filling in this weekend, Travis Walch & Cody Lee. Let's get jammin with the JAMMERS! ~ more later~

Are you the Best? Have you Learned how to MISS your miss...

Tulsa Celtics
Watched last five seconds of the Mavericks versus Indiana; Nowitzki was fouled intentionally with 4.3 seconds left and made the first one which pulled the Mavericks within TWO POINTS. After a long delay and many substitutions by each team, he attempted to MISS his shot, and hopefully trigger a long rebound that he or his teammates could retrieve. However, it was not to be. The Dirk went through his motions, cocked the Free Throw, and then made a Perfect BackBoard Swish (PBBS); he MISSED his miss. By making his shot (or Missing his Miss!), the DIRKSTER sealed the fate of the Mavs, who suffered the one point defeat, by MAKING his attempted MISS. The Dirk needs to Learn (practice) ,,,,how NOT ,,,to MISS ,,on his MISS.

Practice tip: How will you attempt to miss a free throw in the same situation? A high arching shot off the back rim? Passing it HARD against the front of the rim? Hard off the backboard and the rim? (What the DIRK attempted and failed at.)

John Wooden says he doesn't have to do that much coaching during the game because of the incredible preparation his teams do in practice. Since none of you play for Coach Wooden, help your Coaches by practicing harder and smarter on both your weaknesses and strengths.

CELTIC QUOTE:
The Harder you are on yourself; the easier Life is on you.

Tulsa Celtics & Tulsa Hurricane

Tulsa Celtics
Not sure what roster will look like at tipoff, but the CELTICS are set to go in another HARDWOOD HEARTBREAKER tournament which begins on Saturday morning.

Right now, it looks like we have Wise, McIlroy, Ebigwu, Maguire, Morton and two mystery players all set to go. The Eagles will be stocked with two recently crowned MAYB Champions in Pinkerton and Santos (wearing CELTIC jerseys), to go along with their twin towers of Chris and Trevor.

First round game for the Celtics is against the Tulsa JAMMERS who finished fourth place in the MAYB National Tournament last summer. Should be exciting and great basketball experience for all players involved.

I took Brock to see the Tulsa University versus UTEP game tonight; Tulsa went out to a 10-0 lead and upset the MINERS in an exciting game at the Reynolds Center. UTEP's Rivera is an incredible point guard but Tulsa did what was necessary at crunch time to pull away with an 11 point victory. Congrats to Coaches Williamson (Pooh) , Coop and Kwanza!!!

Point Guard:
The Point Guard is the KEY position to any great team. This player must be smart and observant. The point must immediately realize when the defense changes, and to what extent. He must be unselfish. He must be a solid & steady ball-handler that can see the terrain of the floor and quickly spot open teammates or mismatches. Defensively he must be able to contain the other team's point guard. Contain meaning not allowing the opposite point to beat him off the dribble, nor allowing great shooting points to have uncontested three point shots.

Speaking of POINT GUARD, Pooh Williamson put on the most amazing display of leadership under then Hurricane Coach Tubby Smith in Tulsa's Sweet Sixteen run in 1995. Pooh played FORTY straight minutes in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament against UCLA and Oklahoma State. The first game for the 12 seeded Hurricane was against #5 Seee UCLA. One of the players for UCLA was quoted a few days before the game of saying, "Where IS Tulsa?". hahahah......Tulsa may have played the BEST first half in HURRICANE history. They could do NO WRONG and exploded to a l12-102 victory although it wasn't really that close.
BUT, Pooh played incredible, dished out numerous assists, and had ZERO TURNOVERS. Two straight games, arguably the most important of his career, and he played flawless.


Hurricane's next game is 7 pm Saturday. They will face Boise State and shoot for their third straight home victory, and if they win, force Hurricane followers to re-examine their post season conference tournament capabilities. Good Luck Pooh, Coop, Kwanza and the boys!!

School Playoffs

Union, Jenks and Broken Arrow will be involved in playoffs next week. It is rumored that two Celtics will square off on Tuesday evening. Corey Shannon and his Broken Arrow Tigers may square off against Brian Benson and his fellow Jenks Trojans.

School Playoffs

Union, Jenks, Broken Arrow will be participating in Playoff tournaments next week; Rumor has it that Corey Shannon and his Broken Arrow teammates might meet up with Brian Benson and his fellow Jenks Trojans Tuesday night.

Celtic Families

Tulsa Celtics
Last Friday night after whipping Bixby in the first round of the MAYB tourney, I started this site. I am not sure what it will evolve into. Please share your thoughts and feel free to post comments.

Hardwood Heartbreaker Tournament coming up......

Tulsa Celtics
Three in a Row?
Two tournaments ago I emailed and spoke to the team about winning a Championship. It seems it had been quite awhile since we had one First Place. I made it our goal and we succeeded.

Last weekend, with slightly different personnel, we won our second straight championship.

Next weekend, we are in the
Hardwood Heartbreaker and play an old nemesis, the Tulsa Jammers, in the first round. They play physical and are quite athletic although we haven't seen them in a long while.

The Eagles, our "brother" team, is also entered in the tournament and we might see TWO CELTICS who helped us win the MAYB last weekend, suiting up as Eagles this weekend. It will be fun if we hook up with them. We wish the best for Coach Lucas and Coach Santos in all their games,,,,, except if they face the CELTICS. Then, may the best team at that time, WIN.

Study hard. Play hard. Enjoy each day as if its your last.