Past masters Neptune and Hoops battle for Cup survival
Both have had to take the scenic route this season, when the back door system kept their hopes alive.
Neptune, beaten by neighbours Mardyke UCC Demons in a dramatic final last season, were drawn against the champions in the first round when Demons turned the SuperLeague derby result upside down.
They went into a pool for places in the quarter-finals with other teams beaten in the first round and two Division One sides and, last weekend Neptune were awarded a walkover by Corinthians.
On the other side of the draw Hoops, who were trounced by DART Killester in the first round and struggled in the SuperLeague, shocked MDS Star to qualify for tomorrow night’s engagement when they will once again be the underdogs.
After four successive Cup wins the Dublin side has gone through a period of massive change. They lost a lot of promising young stars to the US and suffered a huge blow through the departure of player/coach Anthony Jenkins, one of the great personalities of Irish basketball.
They have steadied the ship in recent weeks and their shock win over Star made people sit up and take notice. They also beat Waterford Crystal and Gleneagle Lakers and now feel they can step it up another notch against Neptune.
“We are not overconfident but I would hope we will do better than in the SuperLeague when we lost by four points,” Hoops’ Press Officer Eamonn Saunders said.
“We had a pretty traumatic start to the season. One of our Americans left before our first game, the other went a short time later and to compound our problems Ruben Perry fractured his foot.
“But we have settled down. Jackson Bain and Dave Hughes have settled in. What we lack is a bit of experience. We have very exciting young players in the squad. Scot Kinevan is just 17 and is an outstanding point guard, while another 17-year-old, Ciaran White, has been doing phenomenally well under the boards.”
Neptune coach Jim Nugent knows they will be the hot favourites to advance to the quarter-finals coming off a midweek SuperLeague victory over Gleneagle Lakers but he won’t take anything for granted.
Marcus Walley has had to sit it out in recent weeks with an ankle injury that could keep him out of the game for another month.
“He has been with the physiotherapist but his chances of playing are less than 50/50. We may chance him,” Nugent said.
“We won by two points in Killarney but we had a lot of problems. Apart from Marcus, Ronnie Clarke had a stomach bug and Michael McGinn was on three fouls early in the first half and sat out a lot of the game. We had to work hard.
“We postponed last week’s derby game against Demons on account of the cup tie and then found that Corinthians were unable to field a team. We felt we had played very well against Tralee the previous week and it would have been nice if we could have kept up that momentum.
“Stephen (McCarthy) and Gordon (Fitzgerald) were excellent in Killarney, scoring 22 pts and 18 pts, and I was delighted with the way Kevin Reddy and William O’Regan played when they came off the bench.”
Waterford Crystal caused a shock when they knocked Ballina out of the Cup and coach Michael Evans knows it will take more of the same when they play UCD in their third round game on Sunday afternoon at the WIT.
Mardyke UCC Demons have been the epitome of consistency in recent weeks, winning five out of six games and will be hoping to take it to a new level when they travel to Glasnevin on Sunday to play Roma St Vincent’s, the current form team, in a cross conference game.
Coach Pat Price could have to plan without Shane Coughlan, who has a virus. Young David Murphy made a spectacular return from illness to hit 18 points last weekend and will provide the necessary cover for the experienced Coughlan.
Abrakebabra Tigers will be without a number of prominent players when they travel to Ballina to play Merry Monk in their cross-conference clash.
Roscoe Patterson is in the US, Michael Quirke will be attending the Kerry All-Ireland football medal presentation and Kieran Donaghy will be in action with Austin Stacks in football, but John Teahan returns.
Ballina are formidable opponents at any time but particularly on their home turf and Tigers, who have lost only one game, may have to produce something special to keep their record intact.
Limerick Lions lost to Ballina last weekend and they will be entertaining Shamrock Rovers Hoops on Sunday afternoon when the outcome of the game against Neptune could affect the Hoops’ performance.
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