So it was no surprise that the place was absolutely rammed - with over 1000 ballers and spectators.

During the "show and prove" session, it was all about court 3 - up on the balcony. There, one team was killing it. Benji Lawman, Daniel Montague and Clayfell Harris were dunking pretty much at will...all securing spots on the elite court.

On court two, meanwhile, one dude was playing in what looked like his boxer shorts. Oh my life...Sterling was merciless on the microphone!

When the action got going at midnight, Laurent Irish (where's this guy been??) was smashing it...as was this dude who looked like Ivan Drago (remember Rocky IV?) called Karolis.

Laurie got himself to the top of the leaderboard then, when his team came off, I saw him leave. I guess he figured he'd done enough to make the top 10 - pretty confident given that it was still only about 2am.

Meanwhile, Benji Lawman was finishing fast breaks with authority - and brought the house down with a T-Mac style off-the-glass alley-oop.

But the top of the leaderboard was about to change. 5' 7" Stefan Gill went on a tear.

He was absolutely unconscious - drilling countless threes and driving strong to the basket. Nobody could stop him from scoring, or his team from winning, and he rocketed to the top of the leaderboard...sitting 24 points clear at one point.

Matthew Bryan was doing his thing - despite the hairstyle!

And his partner in crime Justin Robinson was playing tough...but just missed out on qualifying.

Late on, Hackney youngster now playing in the States Paul Guede turned up. He too was playing well - but also just missed making the top 10.

As the night wore on, legs started getting tired - so there were a lot of missed dunks and backies. However Stefan kept killing it.

But as ballers began to run out of steam, Gareth Laws decided to get busy. Having found himself on a personal points tally of minus 3, he started taking the ball to the basket and setting up team mates. As his squad racked up the victories, so his points total increased...and he finished 6th place on the leaderboard.

Just behind him was Darryl Lewis. He was another cat who was nowhere near the leaderboard with just a few hours left...but battled his way into the top 10 through sheer hard work.

And Daniel Sandell - fresh off the plane from the States - also booked himself a place in the final.

Come six in the morning, everyone was knackered.