The buzz about this year's Midnight Madness has been pretty strong. With Nike throwing their full promotional weight behind it - whipping up hype across printed and online media - I knew it would be well attended.

But NEVER have I seen a QUEUE for Midnight Madness!

Arriving at Brixton Rec at 7:30pm, it was like Rough and Ready all over again - with cats lining up 2 or 3 deep outside.

You could tell this shit was being run properly - security was mad tight (not surprising given recent events, but it was reassuring), helpers everywhere, big-ass Midnight Madness logos in the centre of each court....and the piece de resistance - machines which pre-registered players could flash their mobile phones at to gain entry. Wow.

For the first few hours, both courts ran open scrimmages. With all players trying to get noticed and picked for the elite court, it was your usual type of ball-hogging, one-pass-offense basketball!

However, a few guys started to shine. Darryl Lewis was dunking all over heads.

Gareth Laws and Frank Batimba held it down old-school style, meanwhile the very "new-school" Jimi from the Crowd (right) pulled a few nices moves and dropped some sweet dimes.

And Streetball.co.uk message board legend J-Mac was smashing it up...breaking ankles (despite his size), hitting shots...I even spotted a dunk!

 


SNOOP HOLDS IT DOWN DURING AN IMPROMPTU DUNK CONTEST

At midnight, the 25 pre-selected elite players began running...and so the battle for the top of the leaderboard began.  

Here's how the system works:

  • Players rack up points for every positive thing they do (1 point for a rebound / steal / assist or inside shot, 2 points for a dunk or three-pointer) but lose a point for every negative (turn over, foul).

  • An extra point is added if a particularly difficult shot is made (a long range bomb in someone's face, hangtime layup on a centre, dunk with contact etc)

  • All team members get 5 points for every game won...but have two points deducted for every game lost
Those rules create something of a paradox - you have to play team basketball to ensure your squad gets those 5 points and stays on the floor, but you also have to get yours...as it's your personal points tally that counts come 6am.
 
Amongst the early standouts were Junior Williams, Pierre Henry-Fontaine and Samuel Toluwase.

Junior is one of the only British "pure" point guards around. The guy lives to pass, and controls the floor and his team mates with an amazing air of confidence.
He helped his team rack up the victories, whilst collecting those all important personal points through assists and jump shots.
 
Pierre (right) was carrying on like a man possessed. He'd told me that his sole focus was to make that team flying out to New York...and you could tell. He did it all, from rebounds, to threes, to dunks. He just refused to lose.
 
And Samuel played much bigger and stronger than his frame would suggest. He was going to the hole real strong, often finishing with a dunk.
 
For the majority of the night, Pierre's name sat at the top of the leader board...but a great performance from athletic youngster Ibrahim Gariba earnt him a stint in poll position.
 
Meanwhile, other guys were just grinding it out...a prime example being Keith Phillips, who didn't do anything out of the ordinary but really racked up the points through his blue collar efforts. And Darius Defoe was rebounding like a monster and running the floor to finish fast breaks with huge slams (and those all important "dunk points").
 
But the whole shape of the leader board changed over the last couple of hours as a tough team featuring Brixton fam Marcus Knight, Mansour Mybe, Lekan Popoola and Matthew Bryan...plus former Westminster big man Dapo Fagbenle...stayed on for victory after victory after victory.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Marcus is a soldier. He plays so aggressive, isn't scared of the contact but can also stroke the outside J. You could tell he had one thing on his mind...making that top 10 list...and when all the stats were finally counted, he'd JUST scraped a place!

 
It was an exhausting night (and that's just for me, let alone the players!)
 
Generally it ran smoothly, however there were some issues:
  • Players picked from the earlier "show and prove" session didn't get put into the elite rotation soon enough (they had to wait about 3 hours) and therefore didn't stand a chance of making the top 10. Organiser Nhamo Shire has assured me that this will be rectified in the following two qualifiers.

  • The event was so popular that there were more players than there were courts (or hours in the night!) Therefore, unless you won, chances are you'd only get a couple of games.

  • The play was perhaps a little TOO physical. It's all good letting the guys play, but when it gets really rough it can be dangerous.

That said, it was a good night of intense, hard-nosed basketball and it was interesting watching the leader board change over the course of the night and trying to guess who'd qualify.

For a full list of who made the Top 10 (actually, it turned out to be Top 11) click here.
 

Meanwhile, make sure you hit the Nechells Centre in Birmingham this Friday for the second qualifier. Doors open at 8pm.