POSTED BY: Eurobasket News
Steven Williams
This Saturday in Fayetteville NC the East Coast Basketball League playoffs will begin with the Northern Conference playoffs taking place at Hope Mills Recreation Center and will be hosted by the #3 Seed Fayetteville Panthers. The Southern Conference will also start on Saturday and will take place in Columbia SC.
The first matchup on Saturday will feature the host Fayetteville Panthers taking on the Virginia Dream who come into the matchup as the #6 seed. The Dream will feature former NC Tarheel and 1st Round NBA Draft Pick P.J. Hairston (6'6''-G-1992, college: UNC) and high flying forward Cordarius Townes. Fayetteville are led by multiple time League Allstar Steven Williams (6'2''-G-1990) and veteran guards Phillippe Harris (5'11''-G-1985, college: Fayetteville St.) and Bryan Calloway (6'0''-PG-1989, college: Cent.Carolina).
The second matchup will feature a high scoring matchup after these teams combined for over 300 points in both of the matchups earlier this season with the #4 seed Carolina Chosen Lions taking a pair of games from the #5 seed NC Capitals. The Chosen Lions are led by the league leading scorer in Montrell Williams (6'4''-G-1992, college: Arkansas Tech) at 43ppg and also multiple time Allstar Isiah Alston as these two combine for 76pts per game. The Capitals are led by Omar Jabbi 40.2pog who is 2nd in the league in scoring and Dyron Jones (6'1''-G-1994, college: Cecil CC) 22.2ppg who ended the season as the leagues leader in steal.
Day Two will feature 2023 Regular Season Champions the Winston Salem Wolves and the 2022 Northern Conference and League Champions Petersburg Cavaliers.
The Petersburg Cavaliers will be playing the winner of the Fayetteville/Dream matchup in the 1st matchup on Sunday at 4:00pm. The Cavaliers were at the top of the standing all year long before falling to Winston Salem in Winston on the last day of the regular season and will be looking to make another Championship appearance for a chance to avenge the loss to Winston. The team is led by perennial Allstars and All League performers Elijah Moore (6'8''-F-1995, college: Virginia St.) and Tavon Mealy (6'3''-F-1995, college: Virginia Union). Mealy finished the season as the leagues leading rebounder at 16.5rpg to go with 20.1ppg and Elijah Moore averaged 25.1ppg and 9.1rpg.
The second game of the day will begin at 6:00pm with Winston hosting the winners of the Lions/Capitals matchup. The Wolves come into the game having finished the season winning 6 of there last 7 games to take the top seed for the 1st time since 2019. The team was led in scoring by there Big 3 in Mike Chambers (6'2''-G, college: Lees-McRae) 27ppg , Mike Hughes 24ppg, and NiQuan Cousins 18ppg and the group combined collectively average close to 28rpg.
The winners of the games on Sunday will advance to play in the ECBL Northern Conference Championship Game in Rock Hill SC at Legion Collegiate Academy at 3:30pm on Saturday June 17th.
Courtesy of: ECBL
Tags : STEVEN WILLIAMS, FAYETTEVILLE PANTHERS, ECBL BASKETBALL
