Entourage Basketball’s midweek squad found it hard to make a splash in the FastBreak men’s league this past season, finishing at the bottom of the 5-team league. Team Schoolers took home the Spring ’17 title with an impressive 11-1 record.

Shrinking from eight to just five teams, the FastBreak Men’s league, hosted as usual this Spring at United World College Tampines, still showcased some of the best amateur teams in Singapore. Defending champions, Iguanas, were joined by experienced teams like the Schoolers and Blue Steel. Rounding up the quintet were a young up-and-coming Fastbreak team and finally, the newly assembled Entourage Basketball Midweek roster.

Some problems that would plague E.B.I -midweek most of the season were already visible in the opening loss to the Iguanas, a 39-point drubbing at the hands of last season’s champs. Offense was hard to come by, and the hastily assembled roster had no defensive cohesion either.

Opposing teams took advantage of this, as the men in green ranked last in defensive stats, conceding 81 points per game while scoring under 60. A big part of the difficulties was the low participation rates of the players, a commonly seen issue in Singapore team sports, given the large expat community and their need to travel for work in many cases. Of eighteen registered players, only four played in at least 10 of the 12 games, while the rest barely made it to half the games.

Yet there were some glimmers of hope, some light at the end of the tunnel towards season’s end. Weekend league cornerstones Chi, Javier and Jean Baptiste kept the squad competitive as the season progressed, highlight games like the double overtime loss to the Iguanas (63-66) and a high-scoring season finale (84-91) against the FastBreak team hinted at the possible level of play that could be achieved.

Center and team manager Jean Baptiste, already a mainstay on E.B.I’s weekend league championship team, led the team with 19.4 points per game. Cementing his status as one of the league’s best players, JB was rewarded with a place on FastBreak’s All-League First team.

The midweek team is already looking ahead to a new FastBreak league season, starting August 16th. New players are currently being recruited and the veterans will surely be back to erase the foul taste of the 1-11 record of the past season.