Very nice hoop.

Ok, so I got the Megaslam 60 as my 10 year old son just loves playing basketball. I decided to install myself...more on that in a moment. First, this is a great basketball hoop. Very solid and very heavy! It not only feels great to play on but it also looks great installed. It is so nice it draws the whole family outside to shoot PIG, HORSE or Bump almost daily. The rim and backboard feel extremely sturdy and my kids love hanging on the rim. It is effortless to raise and lower the goal from 5.5 to 10 feet. Now for the install part. Digging a 48" hole is no small task to begin with. Alabama is known for its hard clay and at 54 years old it took me a week or so of 20 minute sessions to finish the hole. I have never worked with concrete and I looked forward to the challenge. The hardest part of the concrete was picking it up, taking to car, loading in car and then unloading the bags. That is alot of lifting of 50lb bags. (approx 25 bags for me). Now, here is one the part that gave me pause. I watched some videos to gain knowledge of how to properly mix concrete. I then followed the instructions on the bag and the concrete mixture seemed very granular/too dry. I added about 10-20% more water to get the texture that I learned from the videos. I was a little nervous about this bc there are a ton of warning about adding too much water will cause the concrete to lose up to 40% of its strength. I felt I had the mixture down just right. I poured the concrete and the rebarb went in just fine at the halfway point. Then topped it off and time for the J-Bar Plate. Uh oh.... Even after adding a little extra water the concrete was still firm enough to make it very difficult to get the J-bars to sink it. I literally had to stand on the plate and bounce up and down for 20 minutes before the plate sunk enough to be flush with top of concrete. I then had to take a stick and push the concrete underneath to make sure it formed around jbar and did not leave any air pockets. Frustrated I went back inside to look at the videos and here is what I noticed. The install video shows a very wet almost soupy concrete mixture and the guy has no problem setting the j-bar plate flush with the top. Again I am no concrete expert but the concrete labels warned against that. Or maybe I had it all wrong. Anyway if you are installing yourself take note of the concrete mixture and I guess go a little wet. Sooo...5 days later I did pay 3 people to assist in assembly of the goal. I thought about just getting 2 and I am glad I went with 3 which makes 4 men total. The main pole is extremely heavy and the backboard is extremely heavy so you are better off with 4 capable adults. Two men lift the backboard and one guy holds it upright, the fourth sets the bolts. Once all the bolts are set it really only takes one guy to make all the adjustments. As soon as I tightened everything we were good to go. Outside of the concrete issues this was a relatively easy install. We love our MegaSlam 60!

I installed it myself (with some free labor by my in-laws!) with no problem. Digging the hole is the hardest part; the instructions are clear. It is a very stable system and I am so glad I have a "real" hoop experience instead of something that feels cheaper. Being a structural engineer, I went to Mega over others due to structural details and the galvanized steel and stainless hardware.