25th October 2008-10-27 Cadet Men’s Match Report

Result: Warriors 69 Sandwell Scorpions 41

 

Following defeats in their first two Midlands Conference games our Cadet Men recorded their first win of the season today, when they overcame a plucky Sandwell Scorpions by 29 points at Blessed Robert Johnson.

First Quarter

We started slowly and shakily with our initial man to man defence failing to work effectively due to a lack of help. A qhick change to a 3:2 zone proved beneficial although it was still far from as effective as it should have been considering our height advantage.

Offensively a change from 5 out to a 1:2:2 let to easy inside baskets for Ben Cameron and Tom Andrews and successes on the drive for Khike Sakiles and Thando Tyanase.

At the end of the quarter we were up 18 – 9

Second Quarter

A scrappy second quarter saw us add just 12 points to our total. However, Sandwell were presenting little threat on the scoring front. Jordan Bullock and Dan Cooper came into the game and both settled in very effectively to their roles. Dan hit some sparkling passes and also scored an excellent basket himself. This clearly gave him confidence for the rest of the game.

Third Quarter

The third quarter saw us scoring quite freely, often off good fast breaks. Khike got three super individual baskets on the drive, Tom and Ricky both knocked down two nice close range jumpers apiece, and Matt Bailey created and scored an excellent basket of a break.

Unfortunately at the same time as we were scoring well we were also giving away a series of uncontested shots from the perimeter and also giving up easy inside points because of our poor boxing out and rebounding. Consequently, by the end of the quarter we had only extended our lead by four points to 48 – 30.

Fourth Quarter

The fourth period was our most effective on offence. Thando scored 7 impressive points off the break and Khike picked up 4 more points with his speed down court.. Matt gor another super individual basket. Jay got a well deserved two baskets, Dan another nice one and Ben Cameron a nice jumper for a game high 16. The negative in this quarter was the number of cheap fouls we gave away by lax defence.

Match Scorers

Our scorers were Ben Cameron 16, Tom Andrews 12, Thando Tyanase 11, Khike Sakhiles 10, Matt Bailey 6, Jagon Honeyford 6, Ricky Brezwyn 6, and Dan Cooper 4.

Conclusions

There are good things to take away from this game. Once we got our break going Thando and Khike’s speed down court were a continual threat. Dan Copper had an outstanding first game, using his brain and visual to record numerous assists with his accurate and perceptive passing. He was my MVP. Another particularly good point was that our scoring was not dominated by just a couple of players. Four in double figures is always a good sign and 8 on the score sheet is always welcome.

On the minus side we turned the ball over too often on the perimeter and made too many bad choices of outside shots. If we had rotated the ball more we would have got much better percentage shots.

Defensively I have to say that I thought we were pretty poor. We will need to work hard on our man and zone defences and communicate far better to stop opponents getting off easy shots and making easy drives. We need to work as a unit whether in man or zone, and particularly need to improve our boxing out and rebounding.

Having said the negatives my thanks go to all the players for their efforts. Everyone gave their best and that is all a coach can ask for. Good luck to you all for the next game in two weeks time.

Stand In Coach Tom Sunley

Match Report: Tom Sunley

Photo: Carsten Dieterich