It was tied with about a minute to go, but with a controversial call and the issuing three, the Explosion couldn’t come back.

The Santa Barbra Breakers were lead by 24 points from Lamond Murray.

Everett was led by Rashaad Powell’s 24 points, 6 rebounds; Donald Watts had 23 points and 4 assists. Jamaal Miller had 18 points and 8 assists, while Justin Murray put up 16 points and 13 rebounds.

Today at 5:30, the Everett Explosion (16-4) face Santa Barbra (15-5) in the semi-finals of the IBL West playoffs at Warner Pacific College in Portland, Oregon.

I played with the Everett Explosion until I broke my face two months ago. Now they are one game away from the IBL West championship, and the team that stands in their way has 8 players from the NBA or the D-League.

I am trying to talk my wife into making the drive down to watch the game and spend the night in Portland, but today is our 7th wedding anniversary, and she already made plans. If they win today, hopefully I can at least talk Julia into driving down for the IBL West All Star game and Championship on Sunday.

Santa Barbara Players
Bryon Russell 6′7” NBA – Utah Jazz, Denver Nuggets

Samaki Walker 6′9” NBA – Dallas Mavericks, San Antonio Spurs, LA Lakers, Miami Heat

Toby Bailey 6′5” NBA – Phoenix Suns
Fred Vinson 6′4” NBA – Seattle Sonics, Atlanta Hawks, LA Clippers
Jelani McCoy 6′10” NBA – Seattle Sonics, Toronto Raptors, Cleveland Cavaliers
Justin Johnson 6′0” NBA D-League
Jerry Dupree 6′7” NBA D-League
Mike Efevberha 6′5” NBA D-League

The Everett Explosion are two games away from clinching the Western Division title of the IBL. On April 18th they will have an opportunity to get one step closer to the title. The first 500 fans at the Everett Event Center will receive the following trading card of local race car driver Darrell Tiedeman. The card was designed by a friend of mine, Steve Kajihiro of JAMK Photography.

Some lucky fans might receive an autographed version of the card. I also caught wind that Darrell might be around after the game to sign additional autographs.

After spending the last nine months practicing with the Everett Explosion, I got my first opportunity to suit up for a professional basketball game last Friday at the Tacoma Dome. I didn’t get an opportunity to play, but I was looking forward to our next game. Unfortunately, in practice on Monday, I caught an elbow to the face. It happened to land right on a nerve ending and caused the right side of my face to go numb. Since I couldn’t feel how bad it was, I kept playing, and later in practice I managed to catch a second elbow on the same side of the face. At this point I knew I was done for the night, but my face was still pretty numb, so I couldn’t tell if it was anything serious.

As I was getting ready to leave, a teammate noticed that my face was starting to swell up, and he encouraged me to get it checked out right away. So I headed to the emergency room at Evergreen Hospital. After a couple hours I finally got to see a doctor. Ironically, it was the same doctor that I saw last year after taking an elbow to the throat. We had a good laugh, and he ordered a CAT scan. After a couple more hours we got the results from the CAT scan, and it turned out that I have multiple fractures on the right side of my face, there is a small chance that I might have permanent nerve damage, and I am supposed to see a plastic surgeon in two weeks.

Though this type of an injury doesn’t require me to end my basketball career, it has made me revisit my priorities. I have a beautiful wife, a great job as a Program Manager at Microsoft, and an exciting new business venture with CheckOutMyCards.com. So I promised Dr. Webster that the next time I saw him it wouldn’t be for a basketball injury.

I have no hard feelings and no regrets. I gave the professional basketball thing a shot, but after my third trip to the ER in three years due to a head injury from playing competitive basketball, it is time to hang up my competitive basketball shoes. With the extra time I hope to spend more time with my wife, stay on top of work responsibilities, and help CheckOutMyCards.com become a success.