PCTI Players' Poll: #11 Bruiser

The Brat's Preamble: Bruiser is the most unique player in PCTI. By that I mean that he least resembles any of the other fifteen. If say Ahop this year organized for Friday night entertainment a guessing game in which you had to describe a player by his physical attributes or playing style – one of those stupid ass games where people are walking around with names stuck to their foreheads - would there be an easier draw than Bruiser? Maybe you could make an argument for Pitto but I'd go with the Stickman hands down (man down.)

Maybe this explains why PCTI seems to undervalue good ole' Bruise. We have little basis for comparison. I can almost guarantee you that when you look at his stats over four PCTIs, they'll be better than you think. Numbers wise he outplays a lot of people who are ahead of him on this list. Yet for many of us, it's clearly an apples versus oranges type of comparison to try to value his game in relation to theirs. This has been evident for years as he's chronically under-drafted. And now, he gets the ultimate backhanded compliment from his bretheren. Bruiser is the pick for the player who's played most above his ability level. Interesting that a guy who has played in all four PCTIs and had very similar stats in all four PCTIs is the guy who now wears this label.

Bruiser's inclusion at no. 11 and his pick as “Most Out Of His Mind” is the beginning of a trend that will show up pretty regularly the rest of this exercise. That is that the ability to single-handedly win a game is greatly valued, while the ability to single-handedly railroad your team and lose a game is mostly overlooked. There's a lot of middle of the pack guys in PCTI who have a history of doing both, depending on the game and those guys are all ranked ahead of a more steady, though perceived lower ceiling player like Stickman.

Of course nobody has ever passed Bruiser the ball enough in the post to have any idea if he could actually carry a team to a victory...but I digress.

Voting Breakdown: highest vote: 8, lowest vote: 13. As I mentioned in the previous post, Bruiser and Spot were nearly identical in where they appeared on almost everyone's ballot. Interesting fact, there were only four players that weren't ranked by someone at ten or lower.

PCTI Lifetime Record: 1-3, Stickman riding a three year losing streak.

Lifetime Stats: 8.2 ppg (7^th, remember when I pointed out that there's three distinct groups of scorers? Bruiser is the top dog in the second tier. Guys he averages more points than: Beas, Donley, Skillz), 6.5 rpg (4^th, 7 rebounds in a game is “elite” for PCTI. Bruise toes that line), 10 blocks (4^th), 9 steals (tied 13^th with The Brat), 43.8 percent shooting (tied 3^rd with Smo), 21 percent from three (only Skillz and of course Smo have attempted fewer threes than Bruiser. Of his 21 attempts I'll estimate 17 of them were of the, “I'm sick of trying to rebound all these misses you bastards are launching rather than throwing the ball in to me, so I'm going to shoot one of my own,” variety) and the all important Sabin Productivity: 235 (7^th, by far the highest number yet! There's an enormous gap between the top eight and bottom eight in this metric. I'd love to hypothesize on why this is but I have no idea what this stat measures or how it measures it.)

Lifetime Bests: 15 points (PCTI I, game five), 17 rebounds! (PCTI II, game 6), 2 assists (several times)

Other Notes: The blood is on all our hands for putting Bruiser low on this list, thus insuring he'll show up to Denver pissed off and ready to break someone in half. Thank God I thought to do this only a few weeks out so he doesn't have proper time to get revenge yoked.

I'm thinking the 17 rebound game is the high water mark for PCTI, we'll see if anyone else on the list tops it. In one of the great moments of PCTI, Bruiser came out wielding a blowtorch in the first ten minutes of the KD but that was not his high point game, as he finished with 14 points (it only felt like 30.) Of course that moment is largely remembered because of the way the Kittens folded immediately after Bruiser stopped making shots/shooting. One other note from the KD as it pertains to Stickman: he finished the weekend with zero assists. Somebody, for the love of God, ANYBODY please make a shot for the Kittens!

Bruiser got 18 percent of the vote for the guy who's played most out of his mind. Certainly not an overwhelming number but just enough to earn the superlative. Somebody completely disagreed and voted Bruiser as the most disappointing player. He also got one vote each for most underrated, best teammate, and BEST LOOKING. If one thing is becoming more and more clear, it's that we have a lot of good looking people in PCTI.