Basketball round-up: Killorglin stun Maree, Demons dominate Ballincollig
DEMONS DOMINATE: Mens Superleague basketball at MTU Arena. James Hannigan in action for UCC Demons against Ciaran O'Sullivan, Irish Guidedogs Ballincollig @MTU. Pic Larry Cummins
After a dramatic change of coach this week, Killorglin came up with their biggest win of the year beating one of the league’s favourites Maree in Oranmore.
An unfortunate poke in the eye early on limited the contributions of Maree’s American Terence Lewis as he sat for the majority of the first half. Maree typically controls the inside but Killorglin’s size and physicality unsettled Maree as the home side were outrebounded and were forced to send Killorglin to the free throw line regularly.
The Kerry side didn’t play many players, but their core group all scored well with four players scoring 18 or more. It is a worry again that no Irish player scored for them but that’s not a problem for now as they claw for their Super League lives.
For Maree, this loss is one that won’t define their season, especially with Lewis being limited so much. Without Lewis they probably were a bit too one-dimensional shooting 39 threes, 18 more than their opponents.
The biggest concern for Maree is that Kyle Carey hasn’t been as effective since returning from injury. Indeed, Maree’s title hopes may be tied to his return to top form.
Demons Jekyll and Hyde act continued with a dominant 91-72 win over Ballincollig in MTU. Any thoughts of Ballincollig having a big response after the recent Cup Final between the pair were dispelled early as Demons took control of the game in the first quarter and never relinquished it.
Demons had incredible balance with four players scoring 18 points or more. Tala Fam was at his most aggressive this season, leading the way with 22 points. Ballincollig on the other hand were too reliant on their American pair of Andre Nation and Shawndale Jones and got very little out of the supporting cast this week.
It’s hard to understand how Demons can lose to Templeogue at home and then easily beat Ballincollig away the next week. The inconsistency is infuriating for Demons fans I’m sure, but they’ll take this important win especially with Killorglin winning too.
Belfast Star christened their beautiful new venue the Newforge Sports Complex with a dominant 97-77 derby win over Ulster University. I think I’ve taken Star’s performances this season for granted a little bit and they’ve almost flown under the radar with a brilliant 13-1 record in the league.
Star are combining the top offense in the league with the 2nd best defense (points per game) and it’s their defense that has really set the platform for them to win so many games. Star’s two losses came in back-to-back weeks in December when they gave up 99 and 105 points.
For the rest of the year, they’ve only conceded above 90 points twice and one of them was a triple overtime win. When Star defend and share the ball, they are incredibly tough. In those two losses they had one of their Americans score over 40 points.
In all of their wins that has never happened, although they’ve had plenty of big games. This Star will win as long as they get contributions from all over and so far, they’ve been fortunate to have their core healthy all season, something they’ve struggled with in previous years.
It’s going to take a great performance to beat them in the playoffs, particularly in Belfast.
Neptune won a crucial game away to Moycullen to push one game clear from the chasing pack in the hunt for a playoff spot. Making yet another personnel change, Neptune introduced Che Yasin, who was largely ineffective offensively with multiple turnovers.
It didn’t matter though as Neptune had more offense than Moycullen and after a slow start Neptune took control and never looked back. That Neptune have gone for yet another 6’6 swing man is interesting, as the team seems more in need of a guard than a wing but with two months left in the season, changing the makeup of the team might have felt too dramatic for Paul Kelleher.
For this week anyway, Neptune had the right combination available, and they put a Moycullen team who struggled to create consistent offense to the sword. Whether it works in the long term or not is a bigger question.
For the second week in a row Ulster University has caused major damage to a title contender. Last week Patrick O’Neill’s team beat Brunell and this week they followed up with a 94-81 win over Wildcats.
Ulster had a brilliant start leading 25-14 after the first quarter and the travel combined with the Hickey’s being on international duty during the week likely contributed to that. Ulster though were full value for the win as they forced Wildcats into poor percentages all over the floor including just 22% from three.
Delia Moore and Trinity Moore packed the usual scoring punch, but the supporting cast’s contributions are what set Ulster apart. Wildcats drop to five losses and are now more likely to be caught by the chasing pack than to catch up with the league leaders.
It’s back-to-back defeats for Brunell as they try to get to grips with life without Edel Thornton. For the majority of Sunday’s derby with Glanmire, Brunell looked comfortable but then a fourth quarter collapse offensively cost them again.
Scoring just eight points in the final ten minutes, Brunell couldn’t keep up with Glanmire who had excellent balance with five players in double figures. The 79-69 loss puts Brunell back level with Killester on three losses, while Liffey Celtics are the lone team with two losses.
It’s a shame for Brunell who had been so brilliant up to Thornton’s injury but the change in fortune reinforces just how good Thornton had been this season.
Another team who will feel they haven’t got the love they deserve will be Eanna. They absolutely dominated a Templeogue team that performed well in Cork last week. Eanna are the only team to beat Star in the league and they have the pieces to be a difficult matchup in the playoffs.
Sean Jenkins scoring 25 is a promising sign too, the Irish star was injured in preseason and hasn’t been as explosive as he’s capable of. If he can give them a spark every week, Eanna will be even tougher.
Tralee joined the other top teams in the Southern Conference as they lost away to Sligo in Overtime. Daniel Jokubaitis hit a huge three in regulation to send it to overtime and then in the final 12 seconds both teams felt they had won the game, but big whistles swung the game back and forth.
Sligo have been improving ever since the arrival of Shon Briggs who’s the ideal American for them and this week Briggs and his fellow American Christian Williams combined for 60 including the game winning free throws. It was Oisin O’Reilly’s shooting though that gave Sligo the lift they needed to get the important win.
With Templeogue losing, Sligo look increasingly likely to get the final playoff spot in the North.
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