Kieran Shannon: Celtics delirium a wakeup call to the magic of a hoops weekend

Limerick Celtics' Abdul Wurie Pic: ©INPHO/Tom Maher

We weren’t going to go. Up to a few hours before tip-off we hadn’t even thought to go.

There was enough sport on the box and online and we’d already been at a few games that morning from coaching or playing. We’re all creatures of habit and taking in national league basketball in the flesh was one we hadn’t got back into, even though the season is now two months old with autumn having quietly morphed into winter. Just like your standard league weekend, we could follow the first round of the Cup from the comfort of the couch, on an app, or the governing body’s streaming service.

At some point last Saturday evening though it struck me: if a do-or-die Cup game wasn’t going to stoke us, what was? When would we take in a game this side of the Cup semi-final weekend in Cork?

The young fella, at 14 already a veteran of many hauls down to the Sports Complex in Tralee or the Neptune Stadium in Cork, required some persuasion, giving the impression that all those old Saturday night escapades to watch Kieran Donaghy and his merry Warriors had been like WWF or Pat the Postman: great craic back in the day but something he’d outgrown.

In the end, he caved. Maybe it was the promise of pre-match sweets and a post-match pitstop at a fast-food restaurant that swung it, more than the reminder that an older schoolmate of his was on the home team’s panel. Either way, having purchased two of the last four tickets available, I had company making the 40-minute drive into Limerick for the meeting of the hometown side, Celtics, in their first season up in the Superleague, host one of the most illustrious names in the sport, Blue Demons from Cork, the reigning league champions and fabled Cup specialists.

Now that they’re in the Superleague, Celtics home matches are at the fabulous UL Sports Arena with its greater capacity and more salubrious surroundings. But last Saturday night UL was unavailable and the game was moved to Celtics’ traditional base, the school gym in Crescent College, where some of their players lining out on Saturday night would have first learned to do a layup and many of the club’s youngsters still do.

Much smaller and more modest than UL – and for this occasion, all the better for that. Just like St Vincent’s copped after decades in DCU before returning to their home school gym in Glasnevin, and Tralee are learning now from playing in MTU since the roof in the old Complex collapsed back in January, the smaller and grittier a place is, the more intimate and intense the experience tends to be.

We arrived early enough to secure courtside seats alongside a friend and neighbour but by tipoff the place was wedged and hopping, between all the youngsters and members affiliated with the home club and Demons famously having one of the largest - and most vociferous – away support groups in the country.

Then the ball was thrown up.

I’ve seen a lot of sport through the years, especially basketball, a good bit of it at a considerably higher level than national league. The young fella as well. Two years ago we took in two NBA games on a family holiday in Orlando. Last year we flew over to London to see LeBron and Steph and Co warm up for the Olympics with a fiercely- and closely-contested match with world champions Germany.

And yet, maybe because we were so close to the action, or maybe because we are still more accustomed to a diet of local underage basketball, it was striking, even stunning and at times breathtaking to witness the pace of play and the athleticism and skill of both sets of players.

A couple of minutes in, Limerick’s Abdul Wurie, a 6’7 London-born powerhouse who played college ball in the States, rose well above the rim to throw down a thunderous dunk on his way to 16 first-half points. At one point upon looking up at him inbounding a ball close to us, the son, his early-teen cool now having completely melted away, wowed, “He’s like a Greek god!” 

In contrast, Wurie’s fellow professional teammate, Ariyon Jamal Williams, simply and affectionately known by the locals as AJ, stands just about six feet and struggled for much of the game, especially with his three-point shot. Yet through a blend of his stature, headband, handle, speed and ferocity, he resembled 2017 Isaiah Thomas or prime Allen Iverson, flying around the place. 

UCC Demons supporters at the recent Domino's Men's Superleague clash with Belfast Star. Picture Larry Cummins

Every other player in the game spent some time on the bench. AJ played all 40 minutes. At one juncture in the last quarter, he dived full-length right in front of us for a loose ball, leaving a pool of sweat in his wake that required a small army of volunteers to mop up. Never let it be said of the Americans – or at least that American – that it doesn’t mean as much to them.

Demons for long periods were the superior side. Slick American duo Jarvis Doles and Shariff Black combined for 54 points, while their Irish players, led by Kyle Hosford, were crafty veterans accustomed to winning games on the road and on the biggest stage. Going into the last quarter they were 76-67 up, in control.

But then Celtics switched to a zone defence, with Eoghan Donaghy along with AJ at the top of it putting ferocious pressure on Demons’ guards. Doles stopped getting – or looking – for the ball. Finn Hughes for the home side made big shot after big shot, including a three-pointer with 44 seconds to go to put Celtics up by one, 89-88.

Demons still had a chance. With 15 seconds to go they came out of a timeout to inbound the ball in the front court. Hosford lined up to take it, but before he did, shared a smile and a quip with a couple of local supporters: Ye’re not quiet, anyway! A few seconds later he was all business again: another big game to win in a career full of them. He inbounded the ball. Took a return pass. Drove down the middle. Tried to find Doles. Couldn’t. Turnover. Seconds later, game over.

Delirious Celtic club members and supporters flooded the floor. Its founders, Tony Hehir and Michelle Aspell, husband and wife, team coach and club servants, hugged for what seemed a lifetime – because a lifetime has gone into a club like theirs and a night like this: Celtics in the Superleague, knocking the mighty Blue Demons out of the Cup.

Also out on that floor, more still and sombre, Demons supporters and stalwarts congregated for the usual hot-take post-mortem. Yet there was no recrimination, no complaint. Great game. Great night.

On his way home to Cork, there’s a good chance a Hosford had the same thought. Maybe he was even aware of it while having that banter with the locals as he inbounded that ball. This might have been his last Cup campaign. He’s won his share of them – four in fact – seen and done it all. Yet even for him a night like last Saturday night in Limerick was magic, part of why he came back and probably why I did as well. 

Forty-four years to the month from when I had been left open-mouthed in the Parochial Hall at the sight of my first basketball game – and dunk – and black American ball-player – the game still retained the capacity to wow me.

After the game I took the young fella for that promised burger and chips in a McDonalds a few hundred metres away. No one else in there would have known where we had come from or of the drama that had unfolded just around the corner. Chances are, few of the staff or punters in there have ever attended a national league basketball game.

Ciarán Murphy’s new book has highlighted how so many kids – or older men and women now – have never got to play the national game of hurling. Just as it's a shame that multitudes have never taken in or even known of a national league basketball game in some gym near to them.

More people should do it. And the rest of us, as the young fella agreed over our chips, should do it even more.