CHARLOTTE (Steve Goldberg's Wheel World) - It was St Patrick's Day for New York in Texas on what had to be basketball's biggest weekend.

Yeah, there was that college tournament going on down in Dallas - even if the NCAA wanted to call it North Texas for some reason - and the women's Final Four went on in Nashville where the University of Connecticut, better known as UConn, combined for their second men's/women's double. Exciting? Yes. Compelling?

Yes.

But for my money, the action was happening in Louisville, Kentucky and Burlington, Ontario as the National Wheelchair Basketball Association (NWBA) and the Canadian Wheelchair Basketball League (CWBL) resolved their national championships on the court.

When I lived in Manhattan, we used to joke that everything above Central Park was upstate and that everything above that was Canada. Well, as of last Sunday, New York City rules the American wheelchair basketball world, much due to Canada, at least two of them.

Patrick Anderson and David Eng, two stalwarts of Canada's national team for three Paralympic gold medals and a 2006 World Championship, led the New York Rollin Knicks to their first-ever NWBA Championship Division title. It’s the first title with the Knicks name attached to it since 1973.

The Rollin Knicks were founded by Madison Square Garden Vice-President of Disabled Services David Snowden in 1998 after the inaugural NBA/NWBA All-Star Wheelchair Classic was played earlier that year in the Big Apple as part of the Association's All-Star Game festivities.

In this writer's humble opinion, Snowden, who has also played and coached the team - and probably washed the uniforms as well - has done a better job of putting winning pieces on the court than his NBA counterparts.

Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire may have helped the Knicks sell tickets but Anderson and Eng have delivered NYC a title. Anthony is good but Anderson is great. And he instills the will to win in all those around him. Modest and easy-going off the court, he's a force of nature on it. Over the past 14 years, I've seen him win big games on his own. Fortunately, with teammates like Eng, he didn't have to very often.

The second-seeded Rollin Knicks beat the top rated Dallas Wheelchair Mavericks 76-53 on the power of Anderson's 32 points and Eng's 22.

Anderson was named tournament MVP. I've said it before and I'll say it again: If LeBron is King James, then Anderson is St Patrick. It was a close game halfway through the first period with Dallas leading 22-20 when Anderson scored the next 12 points to put NY ahead by 10, a lead that would grow to 20 at the half as missed shots and mistakes doomed Dallas.

Anderson outscored Dallas on his own with 26 points at the break. He might have had a triple double for the game but I wasn't able to verify that from watching the streaming feed provided by the NWBA. It wasn't all Anderson and Eng. Kevin Grant, Chris St Remy and Faizool Ali each played big parts in a calculated team effort. The Mavericks would get closer but it was never close. St Remy added 12 for the Knicks. Dallas were led by Jared Arambula with 18, with Bobbie Nickleberry and Jason Nelms scoring 14 each.

The NWBA tournament featured three adult and three junior division championships, competed for by over 1,000 players on 82 teams.

In the women's title game, the University of Arizona topped the Phoenix Banner Mercury 51- 34 behind former USA national teamer Jen Ruddell's 20 points.

The NWBA Division III championship was taken by the 5th seeded Carolina TarWheels who, besides having what I consider the best team nickname in the game, went on a fantastic run of play to meet and beat the top-seeded San Diego Wolfpack 58-51.

You can read more about the NWBA tournament here.

North of the border, it was a rematch of last year's CWBL final pitting the Bulldogs de Quebec against my second favorite name in the game, the Gladiateurs de Laval. (Hey guys, I'm still waiting for my 'I am Gladiateur' t-shirt.)

This time around, after suffering a 20-point loss in the penultimate game last season, it was the Bulldog's time to howl. But it didn't come easy in a game that seesawed back and forth until Bulldogs captain Maxime Poulin scored the last of his 33 points to claim the Canadian title with a 64-62 win.

Find out more about the CWBL tournament by going here.

So that's it for the regular season of the American and Canadian league play. It ends with new dogs on the top of the pile for this championship season. 

Steve Goldberg

FIBA

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