March 29, 2015

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The Bloomington Flex did what they needed to do in order to stay alive for the top overall seed in the Midwest Professional Basketball Association playoffs—namely, beat the Chicago Force Sunday at U.S. Cellular Coliseum.

                    But despite the 114-95 win, the Flex now need help from the Gateway Steam, because the St. Louis RiverSharks also won Sunday, beating the Champaign Swarm in St. Louis.  The Steam would need to beat the RiverSharks in one of their two upcoming games and the Flex will need to beat the Windy City Groove on Thursday, April 2, in order for the Flex to finish first.  Otherwise, the Flex will finish second, by virtue of St. Louis’ head-to-head tiebreaker season series tiebreak advantage over Bloomington.  Even if the Flex lose Thursday, they can finish no worse than second despite having identical 15-5 records as the Swarm, because they won the season series over Champaign, 3-1.

                    The Flex jumped out to an early 10-2 lead and never looked back, even though Chicago’s Tremell Adams hit three three-pointers in the first quarter.  Bloomington led after one, 25-19.

                    A fourth Adams triple early in the second drew the Force to within one at 25-24, but an Anthony Slack three-point play with 5:32 left in the period pushed the Flex lead to 10 at 42-32, and Chicago never got any closer.  The first half ended with the Flex up 55-37.

                    The Flex continued to execute their offense in the second half, perhaps as cleanly as they have all year, pushing the lead to 89-57 after three.  A fourth-quarter 25-18 edge made the final margin 39 points.

                    Justin Bocot led the Flex with 25 points.  Fabyon Harris had 19, Trey Blue had 18, and C.J. Hampton scored 12.  Slack finished with 17 points, seven rebounds and five blocked shots.  Matt Salley added eight to his league-leading rebounding total.

                    Adams finished with 21 for Chicago, hitting five three-pointers overall.  The Force end their inaugural season at 4-16, eliminated from playoff contention with the loss.