Conor Meany on basketball: Ballincollig and Killester on course for showdown, more playoff controversy
Ballincollig's Adrian O'Sullivan lays up a basket against Eanna during the Domino's Men's Super League play-off semi final at MTU Arena. Picture; Eddie O'Hare
The best two teams in the country will be contesting the men’s Super League final after Ballincollig overcame Eanna for a fourth time this year (98-77), while Killester topped Belfast Star in Dublin (80-76) for their third win this season over their northern rivals.
It sets up an enticing final in the Arena in two weeks’ time, between two sides who split their season series. Killester missed Paul Dick in the loss earlier in the year and have finally got healthy, winning eight of their last nine games.
Ballincollig are no slouches themselves as they’ve won nine out of 11 since winning the Cup in January.
It will be hopes of third time lucky for Killester; after losing the past two finals and they have every chance in two weeks. It’s also fitting that this season will have had three clubs play across the league and cup finals, and all three have a similarity in that they are the only three clubs this year out of 12 in the Super League that didn’t change Americans during the season.
Add in they all have experienced Irish internationals, and the recipe is clear for success in this league.
Unfortunately, for the third year in a row, Irish basketball’s playoffs have been overshadowed by controversy.
Following the Limerick Eagles v Portlaoise incident, where a replay of 0.4 seconds was considered, and last year’s Demons–Neptune debacle, further issues have emerged after Ballincollig breached the rule requiring two Irish players to be on the floor at all times.
The breach occurred on an endline inbound midway through the second quarter, when Ballincollig briefly had just one Irish player on the floor. The ball was immediately deflected out of bounds and less than a second elapsed before the issue was corrected.
Pre-season guidance stated that a breach of this rule ‘may’ result in a forfeit. However, given the negligible time involved, the absence of any meaningful play and the margin of victory, a post-game sanction (particularly a forfeit) would be entirely disproportionate.
Eanna and Gareth Winders highlighted the issue at the time, but play continued without any sanction, underlining the lack of clarity around how the rule should be enforced. At a minimum, a technical foul should have been called. Instead, the ambiguity has resulted in another unnecessary controversy.
I thought Eanna would push Ballincollig much closer on Saturday, but they will be disappointed that they got so little out of some key contributors.
Stefan Desnica who has been a huge part of this team for the past few years, had just one point, while key American Jaylyn Richardson looked passive and managed only six points.
For a team missing Sean Jenkins' scoring production, this just wasn’t going to be enough. Richardson’s lack of production was curious, as he had caused Ballincollig major issues earlier in the year while playing for Vincents.
Ballincollig, for their part, used a balance of scoring around their top professionals and they are consistently scoring up around 100 points at the moment and will be hard to stop.
Belfast Star played excellent basketball at times but made enough mistakes on both ends of the floor for Killester to win 80-76.
Paul Dick wasn’t at his best on Saturday yet still hit two crucial threes late on to secure the win for a Killester team who are finally healthy and playing their best basketball.
Star struggled shooting from three throughout and despite having the lead in the fourth quarter, their offense looked a bit less fluid than usual, which is part Killester’s doing and part that they haven’t had to navigate big games with Shane Dezonie as their American.
The forced change a few weeks ago, was not a bad pick up, but Star just didn’t have the reps necessary to find answers when they needed them most.
Killester’s hopes of a third league title in a row, to go with their cup title earlier this year was dramatically ended in the IWA at the hands of their southside rivals Meteors.
The talk pregame had been about Killester’s quest for the men’s and women’s title in the same year, which they’ve been so close to achieving over the past two years.
Meteors tore up that script though by playing a physical brand of defence that took Killester completely out of their rhythm. Killester’s star Sam Haiby had recently returned from injury and in truth didn’t look 100% despite scoring 29 points.
Meteors though got contributions from all over with Franciska Treiliha impressing a lot with a great defensive display on Haiby while contributing 11 herself.
Hazel Finn’s 14 points and 16 rebounds will grab attention too, but it was definitely a team effort with eight players scoring four or more. Killester went out on their shields as you’d expect from champions.
They trailed by seven with 40 seconds to go and fought back to force overtime, but Meteors came again and survived a late Audrey Roden shot to win the game.
What’s next for the experienced group of champions is hard to tell but hopefully we see them back again to challenge for more silverware.
Glanmire have been the form team in the women’s Super League winning nine of their last 10 games, and they continued that by overcoming Liffey Celtics 89-72.
Liffey will be disappointed they couldn’t live with Glanmire’s scoring ability in the Mardyke but will have to be proud of a season that saw them get to the Cup final and league semi-final despite not having the depth of many other teams.
Glanmire put so much pressure on teams with Viane Cumber and Jewel Watkins scoring brilliantly and putting teams into foul trouble constantly. With an experienced Irish crew around them and one of the game’s top coaches of all time in Mark Scannell, Glanmire will head to Dublin as favourites in two weeks’ time, which is a remarkable turnaround on last season where they were not close to either title.
Claire O’Sullivan will be hoping for another family double as both herself and her husband Ciaran go for glory with Glanmire and Ballincollig respectively.
The last time Glanmire and Meteors met, Glanmire won an overtime thriller so hopefully we have two great finals to look forward to.
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