They didn’t quite have the skill of the LA Lakers.

But a bunch of private equity’s finest put in at least as much energy as the Los Angeles professionals last night in bashing their hedge fund rivals and helped raise some $750,000.

A match to raise money for Youth, I.N.C. a non-profit focused on children, saw the fifteen minute game end 32-24 to the buyout men.

Not that this wasn’t also a matter of pride.

“We won last year too,” noted Clayton Dubilier & Rice’s Rick Schnall, after the match. “This year they had college basketball players and we still won!”

MidOcean Partners’ Ted Virtue, from the private equity team, quipped:  ”We played well - but as you know, the private equity guys are smarter than the hedge fund team.”

On the private equity side: players were Ted Virtue, MidOcean Partners; Rob Berner, CVC Capital Partners; Ron Blaylock, GenNx360;  Rick Schnall, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice; Jacob Capps, Lion Capital; Luke Long, Thomas H. Lee Capital; Rick Schifter, Texas Pacific Group and Michael Beal of Morgan Stanley.

The hedge fund team was led by Marc Lasry, Avenue Capital. Players included Ryan Renteria, Karsch Capital; Andrew Fishman, Schonfeld Group; Funsho Allu, AIG Investments and Steve Cronin of Schonfeld Group.

(Photo from ©2008 ImageLinkPhoto.com/G. Chesman. For more pics click here)