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Additional rules and penalties for violations, 2 of 4 (effective as of April 5th, 2025):

Voting:
- Based on his discretion (for instance if it's a critically important decision that affects most/all teams significantly) is possible for league Commmissioner to arrange a voting.
About voting:
A) Voting would be announced on this HGL Thread, on 'Announcements'-post, here: (329501.2).
B) Voting is open for a restricted time (TBA; 14 days?) during which only participating managers of HGL could vote.
C) Depending also on whether a change we are voting about would be major one or not, it might be required that at least certain part of managers are voting for a certain option (for example: at least 3/4 majority, or 16/17, or 17/17 managers).
D) league Commissioner reserves the right to decide which issues are decided by voting

Roster changes and methods on how to inform on your own (and observed) roster changes:
- You can not become non-homegrown team (by buying HGL-ineligible players) on any part of the season, including whole duration of HGL playoffs , if you wish to participate in HGL on the next season. Becoming non-HG team will cause an immediate Level 5 penalty. (Certain exceptions that would only take effect after regular season has ended, and would only be meant for teams not reaching playoffs at all could be considered for further Seasons of HGL, but such rules won't be in effect at Season 4 of HGL).
- You are asked to inform league Commissioner before first regular season match of HGL, and during the season:
A) if you have purchased back any of your previously owned player(s) from other team(s).
If you have, please inform who/which players have you bought.
List of teams who have purchased back their previously owned player will be kept and updated by league Commissioner, with information on whether or not this team has received "salary benefit" by making such purchases. (This is legal in HGL to have purchased back own draftees, but listing of such players is being kept and updated nevertheless).
B) if you sell or fire a player.
This B) is not totally mandatory information for managers to disclose if you absolutely don't want to, but HGL strongly encourages/urges you to publish such information as it will make it possible for us to update top8-salaries listing, and also update such changes to official HGL threads so that all participating teams will be informed of any interesting changes that takes place within the HGL.

- Please remember: it is your responsibility to inform HGL (league Commissioner) of your roster changes, as league Commissioner can not (/will not in practice) check out all teams rosters prior to all matches.
This above mentioned changed roster-information can be sent as a post to this official Thread of HGL, or as a BBMail to league Commissioner.

All teams rosters (transfers, dismissals) will be updated throughout the season by league Commissioner and will be found from here: (329501.5).

- Violations (becoming non-homegrown) that are noticed later on will cause just as harsh penalty, starting from the moment violation is noticed.
Please note that any team, participating in HGL or not, are welcome to inform league Commissioner by BBMail or posting on this official HGL Thread, if they notice that:
A) team has purchased 'illegal' players (and therefore immediately becomes ineligible to play in HGL)
B) such illegal players have been dressed for HGL match (same effect as in A))
C) team has total of less than 5 players in their team roster (same effect as in A), unless corrected before 4th affected match of season)

Last edited by Wagner at 1/13/2026 5:26:21 PM

Additional rules and penalties for violations, 3 of 4 (effective as of April 5th, 2025):

TLDR: This whole post likely doesn't apply to you, if don't have a team with very small rosters (7 or less) and are going to set up your lineups/tactics properly for each match.

Minimum roster depths and match lineups, injury exceptions and penalties for roster violations:

Important: remember to setup your default roster again, if you have sold/fired players, so that you will have enough players on your (default) roster for each match if you don't remember to set up each lineup separately for each match!

- It's necessary to have at least 5 players in your home-grown team roster in order to participate to HGL. However, if you run a team with such a small roster, you are risking separate penalties for not dressing at least 5, or not at least 3 healthy players to the match, which both have different penalties, A) and B), as follows:
A) not dressing at least 5 players: You must do all you can to dress at least 5 healthy players for the match; lucky fans do not count, but see exceptions below.
Level 2 penalty: 0-50 forfeit

Injury situation example #1:
You have total 6 players in your team of which 1 is injured, but you decided to dress only 5 players in your match lineup/roster (and leave 6th, healthy player out of the match lineup). In this example 1 of those 5 players that you dressed for the match is injured (replaced ultimately by lucky fan). So therefore you have had a chance to select 5 healthy players to roster, but have failed to do so, which will lead to Level 2 penalty, a 0-50 forfeit loss.

Injury exception/example #2:
Please note that for instance if you'd have only 5-6 players in your team and 1-3 of them are injured, it is possible/acceptable for that reason only (this exception applies only to absolutely necessary injury situations!) to dress also injured players to the starting lineup to fill all the 5 positions.
It is therefore possible to get away from this situation with only 0-50 forfeit loss, and without triggering more strict Level 3 penalty (see below, B)).
If you will, for any reason during season dress 0-2 players to the match lineup/roster, it will cause at the very least Level 3 penalty (ineligibility for playoff play for the current season).

B) not dressing at least 3 healthy players or
dressing less than 3 players to a match in total (whether injured or healthy) for the match:
Level 3 penalty; ineligibility for the current season playoffs.
And, if situation is not corrected by the team before 4th affected match of the season; Level 4 penalty - immediate disqualification from the season.
If you run a team with very small roster, please get at least a decent level doctor to minimize occurrence of such Level 2 or 3 penalties.

NOTE: If for any reason homegrown team has "accidentally" fired/sold player(s) and therefore have less than 5 players in their roster, and yet still would wish to participate in competitive play for the current regular season of HGL (they are excluded from the current season playoffs!), they can try to remedy this situation by buying back their own drafted players if they have sold/fired players previously.
In the case of firing, checking out transfer list immediately might yield results - if player(s) on the other hand has been sold, announcing your interest to current owner of the player to purchase him back immediately might yield results. This must be done practically immediately, as playing 4th match of the season with less than 5 player roster will cause immediate Level 4 penalty (out for the current regular season and playoff play).

NOTE #2: While 5 players is the absolute minimum for acceptance to/participation of the league, it is recommended that you'd have at least 6-8 players (and decent doctor) due to possible injuries affecting the league games and penalties as little as possible.

Last edited by Wagner at 1/13/2026 5:26:39 PM

Additional rules and penalties for violations, 4 of 4 (effective as of April 5th, 2025):

- In Playoffs, the higher ranked team (home team) is always responsible of sending the challenge to PU matches.

- Due to the need to arrange match every week during Playoffs, it is important that managers send challenge at the latest on Thursday (note: this time frame could be changed during Season 4), so that team accepting challenge has enough time to accept it.
Remember: last Regular Season match will take place on Monday at 14.30, or 02.30PM EET Normal Time, (15.30, or 03.30PM EET DST, Daylight Savings Time, a.k.a. Summer Time), so after that match:
A) during rest of season there will be 3 days time to send the Playoff match challenge (normally Mon->Thu; during Playoffs Sun->Wed)
B) there´s (about) 2 days time to accept match challenge (if it's been sent at the latest possible time, on Wednesday, it needs to be accepted on Friday at the latest, before your designated HGL match time).
However, the sooner you send a challenge (or accept it) the better, as it allows more time to set the lineups/tactics.

- To make organizing Playoff matches smoother, an away team has permission to challenge home team (while home team always remains officially responsible for challenging) if they want to speed up the match organizing process and are willing to use 1 extra token for sending challenge (remember: these tokens won't be replaced by HGL, and this is voluntary for an away team).

- In Playoffs designated match times remain same (as in HGL regular season; 14.30, or 2.30PM EET Normal Time, not DST), so the team sending the challenge (home team in Playoffs) will choose correct time and court balance when sending Pickup game challenges. For correct time refer to same participating teams-listing on Official HGL Thread(s), that you used when organizing matches for Regular Season.

- If Playoff match is not played and it can be clearly proven which teams' fault this was, penalties will apply.; Level 2 penalty (0-50 forfeit loss) for the team committing the violation

- It remains to be decided on how HGL is going to deal with situations in where neither of managers admit or can't be proven to be the guilty part. It could lead to critical situations, in where neither of managers could be let to advance to next round of Playoffs, so team that either of them would've faced next round of Playoffs also would receive a free ticket to the next round.
If this would for instance happen to a team that has already secured place to 2nd round, they would reach semifinals (a.k.a. Medal games) without playing a second - that´s far from optimal.

- I will be very clear about this upfront; if we are going to make changes due to managers not willing to follow league practices/be committed enough, it will in first place happen through enforcing rules that are more strict (that therefore discourage violations from appearing, and aim to help to keep HGL running optimally), and not through changing this league and playoff system of 12 teams (or possibly more if league expands in future) reaching Playoffs-format. Format itself is very functional, and it will show it's worth as long as nobody tries to exploit/wreck the system (or become very uncommitted to HGL).

- There are "million" things one manager could do to screw up the league for many others, so please don't do those things that destroy the fun for others and smooth operation of the league. Having said that, I completely realize applying stricter penalties won't alone remove the need for commitment or trust.

- Please note, that while the clear goal is to finish the Season 4 of HGL with these rules only (together with rules published earlier on official HGL threads), as this is 4th season and many things could occur that can't be predicted, league Commissioner reserves the right to make additions/changes to rules during season (by voting or by Commissioner's decision)

Last edited by Wagner at 1/13/2026 5:27:01 PM

As you may have noted, all participating teams of HGL will be required to send box score links for all of their regular season games to this HGL Scores Season 4 Official Thread before Season 4 starts.

First notes A)-F), and then instructions on how to complete the process.

Notes:
A)these score links will be added to one post per manager, that can then be edited throughout the season if needed.
Links will be added to one post/manager to avoid overcrowding of HGL Scores thread, and for being easily searchable.
B) links to every match box scores (from your post) will be copied to the official HGL Scores Thread's 'Schedule/scores'-post, so that each team has access to box scores of every match easily
C) in Playoffs, we will use that same box score post created by each team
D) please never delete box score post then created by you, we might need it a lot later in order to confirm things.
E) to see what filled box score post should look like: (326590.44). Please still read through instructions below before proceeding.
F) to create your own teams' box score post for Season 4, copy-paste everything to your own post (below * * * * * *) from here: (329502.14)

Instructions on how to proceed with writing one post about your HGL box score links:
Remember: you can't finish this process completely before all HGL matches for regular season are organized properly and visible in your team schedule page.

(Season 1 info post: (326590.43)).

1. Go to your official BB schedule page, which is found from https://www.buzzerbeater.com/team/XXXXXX/schedule.aspx
(where X is your team number)
2. Click "Tactics/match instructions"-link (between team names) on your HGL match that you wish to link. (It is the link what you use to set up your lineup and tactics for the match).
3. Once you enter on tactics/line up setting page, match number of that Pickup (PU) match is revealed to you in the browser's address line. It looks like this: https://www.buzzerbeater.com/match/XXXXXXXXX/tactics.aspx and number in place of this XXXXXXXXX is your match number.

Now at this point, you have two ways to proceed, described below as 4A (preferable way which all managers have used), and 4B.
Choose a preferable way for you and please stick with it for the whole season.
Method 4A would be preferable.

In your box score-post on HGL Scores Season 4 Official Thread, you enter links for 16 matches.
For each game include Round number, a day game is played on, and name of your opponent (like in my box score post).

So to your post, link the box score in either way:

4A):By following above instructions you are on the match tactics page already, so copy/make note of the number of the PU match (visible at web browsers' address line). Then on this thread update it to your box score link post, and do so by using 'a basketball button' on the page into where you write text to be sent to forum; that is located above the text frame. Pressing a button will automatically create a string of text such as '[match=XXX.XX]', and as you replace XXX.XX with your match number, the box score link will be automatically created. It will create a functional link to a match box score, which will look like this: (132386153).

4B) by a direct web page link to box score, such as: https://www.buzzerbeater.com/match/XXX/boxscore.aspx (in where XXX represents the match number). You can simply access this by visiting above mentioned match tactics page. By following above instructions you are on the match tactics page already, so Pickup match number is visible to you. If you choose to use this 4B-method, you can copy-paste https://www.buzzerbeater.com/match/XX/boxscore.aspx-link to your season box scores link 16 times (one for each match) on every line, and then for each line replace XX with your Pickup match number.

5. Do this with all matches.

Last edited by Wagner at 1/13/2026 5:27:49 PM

Season 4 HGL Threads (main and scores thread) have now been set up, so HGL related conversation will mainly take place in those Threads from now on.

What everyone who participates to Season 4 of HGL needs to do now:

1. At least briefly check out your season schedule (posts 5 and 6 on Season 4 Scores Thread, link at the end of post); I didn't notice anything special/faulty in it, but having another eyes to check it too doesn't harm.

(Note: Basically we definitely should be good to go without any other thorough checks, as while schedule for Season 4 has been AI created, it has been manually inspected for faults by one of our HGL managers and provider of schedule, LennuK. (from BC Eos). From my experience he has had a careful and thorough approach to his HGL related work/tasks that he has kindly helped me with, so I think we are already on the safe side.

2. Create an own box score post for your team, just like during all previous seasons.
As an idea for your convenience (and to retain preferred standard for HGL) you can respond to this message (329502.20) and from that post of mine copy-paste everything below * * * * * * * to your own box score post (and only change your team name/abbreviation, opponent name for each Regular Season Round, and add match links to it as soon as matches for Season 4 have been organized by you and your opponents).
If you need a memory refresher on how your box score post for the season works/how you edit it once you have box score links to add, you can read this post: (329501.14).

3. Familiarize yourself with match organization process if it's new thing for you or if you need a refresher (guide available on 'Announcement'-posts on both Official Threads before season) and ask questions (if needed) preferably before you'll start the process.

4. Start organizing HGL Regular Season matches (sending and accepting Pickup match challenges, 17 per team during Season 4)

As you all have likely noticed (when being on this Thread), you'll find Official Season 4 HGL Threads from here:
Home-Grown League (HGL) Season 4 Official Thread: (329501.1)
HGL Scores Season 4 Official Thread: (329502.1)

Last edited by Wagner at 1/19/2026 1:39:29 PM

Progress of match organizing process, updateable team list for Season 4:

All managers note:
BC Rajaleidjad (BCR) will replace Svätý Jur Snakers HAD on Season 4.


Listing of match organizing progress:

Wagner College *GTG*
Les Gueux du Marais *GTG*
Elan Demars *GTG*
BC Eos *GTG*
Freccia Azzurra *GTG*
Madrid Chotis *GTG*
WiMaOlca *GTG*
Rajdersi (BP:OK) *Missing match link on RS Round 17; please correct ASAP!*
Vilniaus „Vilkai“ *GTG*
Hårdboll *GTG*
Lielupes Melnas Sirdis *GTG*
Virtus Portici *GTG*
KK Stihija *GTG*
Club Trouville *GTG*
Alanurmon Rikkaat *GTG*
Vindicta *GTG*
Homegrown Kings *GTG*
BC Rajaleidjad *GTG*



Abbreviations used on the table above:
(BP:OK)= own box score post for Season 4 created
S4S:OK= season 4 schedule; all match links sent to own box score post (which are not yet verified by league Commissioner)
*GTG*= team good to go for Season 4, because all above done, plus league Commissioner has confirmed/verified that match days and times are correct.-post)

Please note:
Svätý Jur Snakers (HAD) will not participate on Season 4 (withdrawal notice sent on January 14th).
His team will be replaced by BC Rajaleidjad (BCR), and you are going to play against BCR during Season 4 Regular Season on the day you were supposed to play against Svätý Jur Snakers (HAD).
Example:
My match against HAD on Season 4 was scheduled on Monday 16th of February. On that day I will play against BCR (BC Rajaleidjad).
Also note, that as I was only team that did organize match against HAD at correct time, I can't play my HGL match against BCR at the correct time; that's the reason for 3PM EET match time.

Last edited by Wagner at 1/26/2026 4:23:13 AM

TBA #17

Important note on organizing Season 4 matches:

I have already noticed two matches being organized at a wrong time, so in the case this would be a wider problem, I remind you all again that you use official designated match time for each team (official local time, meaning your local time) when organizing matches.

This will change for 1 hour from season to another, depending on Daylight Savings Time-cycles.
**************
When DST is not observed in EET time zone when season begins, Official HGL match time is your local equivalent of 14.30PM EET (Normal Time) which is the case for Season 4.
****************
When DST is observed in EET time zone when season begins, match time is 15.30PM EET DST (Daylight Savings Time).

I quote my Announcement posts:

For each team an Official Local Time is provided, which they use when sending PU match invitations. Found (before team name), here: (329502.12).
Use only this time given to your team specifically, and nothing else, when organizing (also when accepting!) Pickup matches!

Let's take one example that I saw:
- VPO-EOS is organized at 15.30 a.k.a. 3.30PM EET; this is 1 hour too late, it needs to be reorganized.
Note: if you have sent more match requests at that faulty time, please cancel them now so tokens are not lost.

- when either of team takes a look at above link (with match times), they notice this time is not correct, as they should send and accept challenges only at that time, that is designated time for their team:

- in other words, LennuK. (EOS) should send and accept Season 4 challenges at 02.30PM (and see those accepted matches being played at that time, when they look at their teams' "regular BB schedule" or friendly matches-page, in where pending match offers can be seen).
For VPO on the other hand, this local time that they see in the friendly matches-page (and eventually on regular BB schedule) would be 01.30PM, because they are 1 hour behind EET time zone.

Example:
When I send challenge, I send it on Season 4 at 2.30PM my time (which is time that I see on post #12 that is linked above and below).
When for example VPO sees it in his friendly matches page, this time appears to him as 01.30PM, which would be correct, because
A) this is the time that he sees in this table (and in participating teams-posts): (329502.12)
B) it's also logical because Italy is 1 hour behind EET time zone, which is a reference time zone in HGL.
(Your local time differences compared to EET time zone are represented in participating teams-posts on both threads, 3rd posts, before the team name and = sign; however, use time on that table, or table linked on A) above when you organize matches.

Always ask if you're unsure of the time, so that we don't end up losing lots of tokens.

Last edited by Wagner at 1/14/2026 6:30:28 AM

@ all managers, important notice:
I've noticed some confusion on match times on Season 4.

Please see which time your match is being played by referring to this post:
(329502.12). You would be able to find the same information also from "participating teams"-posts.

This information has been mentioned in official threads probably for tens of times over seasons on different posts, and has been part of the Official Rules since March 2025.

Few of the possible remedies for the future are:
A) check time from those places season by season without making assumptions
B) maybe I could send everyone first round of challenges (I send challenges to all of my games), so that people would then get a correct match time for that season.

Please don't send challenges to Hadár (Svätý Jur Snakers, abbreviation HAD) at the moment as he is likely withdrawing from Season 4.

Last edited by Wagner at 1/14/2026 8:38:38 AM

TBA #19

TBA #20

Hey all, unfortunately, I have messed up some match challenge times. I have sent everyone new challenges. Sorry for this misunderstanding.