In the first round on Sunday morning, the bottom 6 teams had to play the extra set of Wildcard games to advance into the Quarterfinals.  The Toronto CCYAA Downtown Raiders 18 gladly took a forfeit win over the strangely absent Boston Knights Jr (who starred a young 6-7 child prodigy), the Maryland Pistons Jr’s took care of a shortrostered York South Silver Knights team 47-42 as Robbie Lim dropped 20 for Maryland & Elliott Law had 8 for the Silver Knights, and the NY Crossbearers defeated the winless Chicago Dragons Jr team 41-20 with Kevin King tallying 13 for NYC & Eric Liang (4 triples) putting a 3-point show for the Dragons. 

In the Quarters, the 5-time defending Champion NY USAB Warriors 18, coached by USAB Founder and mastermind Bill Chan, strolled to a 50-25 win over the Toronto CCYAA Downtown Raiders. G Devin Figueroa had 20 pts and 8 rebs for USAB.  Markham FCCM 18’s met up with the Montreal MMAC 18’s in a game with lots of M’s, and lots of free throws.    Wilfred Lam’s FCCM team moved on 29-25, as Edmond Lee (5-6 ft) dropped 11 points to lead his team.  MMAC’s Richard Lim scored 9 to pace his squad.  The Toronto CCYAA 18’s, the local all-star team under the direction of NACBA vet Jeff Fong, met up with a relatively young Maryland Pistons team headed by Dr. Kung.  The game boiled down to a 2 on 2 game between Toronto’s Henry Tan (25 pts, 11-13 ft) & Ferdinand Peng (11 pts, 1 trey) and Maryland’s Ben Kwan (16 pts, 7-8 ft, 5 assists) & Robbie Lim (12 pts, 1 triple).  Toronto got a small 4-6 point lead and then iced it from the line as they won a very close one, 43-39.  The final game of the round would result in Mike Mei’s NY Young Life Rockits remaining undefeated in their quest for the Chip as they upended the NY Crossbearers 18, 27-19.  Raymond Fung reached double digits for the Rockits, while Kevin King had 8 for the Crossbearers.

The Final Four featured the 4 most polished and talented teams in the division, as three undefeated teams- NY USAB 18, Toronto CCYAA 18, and the NY YL Rockits- were joined by a team sporting only one loss (Markham FCCM 18).  Up first would be the unstoppable NY USAB 18’s machine v/s Markham FCCM.  These two teams had met on Saturday, with USAB defeated Markham by a score of 36-17.  Having already scouted out the competition, each team was in full game mode.  Markham saw a chance to reach the finals as Eric Yeung was sizzling from the field (5-7) in the first half en route to 10 points.  USAB didn’t seem to be putting in their best effort, but in the second half the Warriors got their defensive juices flowing and limited Markham to only 4 points in the final 18 minutes.  The USAB Warriors earned a 44-20 win as 10 of their 12 players got into the scorebook.  The next game would turn out to cause quite a bit of noise as the NY Young Life Rockits tipped off against the hometown Toronto CCYAA 18’s.    New York looked to trap sensational PG Henry Tan (17 pts, 9-10 ft, 6 rebs) with an endless wave of athletic ball pressure, but it seemed that no one could stop him from getting to his sweet spots.  Toronto was up by a few points and decided to pull it out to maintain their lead.   With the hometown crowd behind them, and with many of the calls leaning towards the direction of Toronto, things got a bit tense.  The Rockits had come to play, and showed no sign of giving up just yet.  They harrassed and chased the speedy and poised Toronto ballhandlers only to be whistled and whistled over again.  The New Yorkers were called for 23 fouls in the second half compared to Toronto’s 4.  Eventually things boiled over and the game was called with Toronto holding a 41-24 edge.

The Championship game would be a rematch of the 2005, 2006, and 2007 Finals games as Toronto and USAB would meet once again for all the marbles.  The NY USAB Warriors were looking to extend their Championship streak to 6 consecutive, while Toronto was back in the big game for the first time in a long time after a few down years.  The big matchup that everyone in the gym wanted to see would be Toronto’s Henry Tan (10 pts, two 3’s) v/s NYC’s Devin Figueroa (17 pts, three 3’s). Both of these young PG’s have the potential to play high level college ball in a few years, and seem to be likely candidates for great Mens Elite level players down the road.  Once again, foul calls became a controversy as the visiting NYC’ers were tagged with 16 foul calls while Toronto was called for only 6.  But to their credit, both CCYAA and the USAB Warriors remained cool, calm, and collected throughout the adversity.  Devin and Henry battled to a stalemate, with each dropping in 8 points and popping 2 treys in the first half.  Swingman Kevin Chang (17 pts, 2-2 ft, 1 trifecta) looked to be the X factor for USAB, while Daniel Mong (10 pts, 2 triples, 3 steals) was looking to embrace the same role for Toronto.  USAB led by one, 26-25, at the half.  New York knew they had to get the ball out of Henry Tan’s hands in the second half, but Henry unselfishly dished the ball to backcourt companion Tommy Wu, who dialed up from long distance 5 times and totaled 22 points.  This turned out to be the best 18/Under Championship game ever witnessed as big shot after big shot found its mark and the crowd grew more and more nervous each trip down the court.  In the end, trailing by two, NY went to Devin Figueroa, who put on his cape and heroically tied the game up with a few ticks remaining.  But not to be outdone, Henry Tan answered for his own deuce and Coach Fong’s Toronto CCYAA 18’s won their fourth NACBAIT, 56-54.  The NACBA would like to congratulate NY USAB on their sportsmanship and professionalism during their 5 year string of Championships.  Great job CCYAA 18’s.