Wolves Bite Lions in the BBL

Hopperational details
Date & Venue	Saturday 16 February 2013 at the University of Worcester Sports Centre
Result	Worcester Wolves 98 London Lions 91 (2OT)
Competition	British Basketball League
Hopping	Court #15 on my hoopshopping list – am here because I was a few miles away in Stourbridge for the football earlier today.
Pre-match preparation
Two mid-table sides, albeit with the hosts in a better position on games played.  Both sides will be hoping to be in the top eight play-off positions but neither have any realistic hope of challenging for the title.  Wolves had a thumping win over bottom team Mersey Tigers last night.
This match in one sentence
Wolves made hard work of beating the Lions, who clawed back deficits in the last seconds of both regulation time and the first period of overtime.
So what?
With Sunday’s results still to come, Wolves are in sixth place with a decent gap, and Lions are edged out of the playoff positions after Cheshire Phoenix nicked a surprise win at league leaders Newcastle Eagles in this round of games.
The drama unfolds
It was an even and fast-paced first quarter.  Lions led at 4-6 with a Mike Martin double and then at 8-9, but there were spectacular blocks from both teams.  Wolves got into foul trouble, but three-pointers kept them just in front.  They opened up a 7pt lead at 18-11 before being pegged back, and it was 20-17 before Arturus Masiulis, who’d had an impressive start to the game, popped in a three on the buzzer.  23-17 at the end of the 1st quarter My scene-setter clip (the lighting isn’t great) has the score going out to 26-17 and Lions getting into foulcount trouble this time.  Wolves are in white. Wolves gradually got on top and had leads of 28-22 and 32-24.  They just executed their plays more efficiently – I imagine their percentages were just a bit higher all-round.  At 42-33, Wolves called a timeout with only 1s left on the clock, only for Lions to steal the ball and Orlan Jackman got an outrageous three-pointer to keep the gap at six.  42-36 at half time A three from Adrien Sturt and a 2+1 from Mike Martin helped to get the Lions back to 44-22 and the next clip ends with the scores level at 49-49 with another Sturt triple. However, Wolves opened the gap to five and then nine again very quickly – a three from Arnas Kaslauskas only just beat the shot clock.  Lions were still not down and out, though, and Tayo Ogedengbe added two on the buzzer to a three so that we had the same gap for the third time in a row.  67-61 at the end of the 3rd quarter The next clip ends at 72-63. Wolves pulled out a gap of 11 and it was still 9 with 6m20s left.  It was down to 7 at 74-67 with 4m24s to go, and then Sturt scored another three to get it back to 74-70.  However, with Lions in foul trouble again the game was still firmly in Wolves’ control – or should have been.  Timeout was called at 77-73 with 46 seconds on the clock.  Ogedengbe hit one from two free-throws and Wolves called a timeout after their next attack left them with only 3s on the shot-clock and 19.6s on the gameclock.  Here are the clips: From the restart, a controversial offensive foul call against Kazlauskas put Wolves in foulcount trouble and we had further TOs at 17.3s and 11.4s after Sturt had been called for a travelling violation. Alexi Owumi hit one of two free-throws to take Wolves to 78-74 with 9s to go. A big three from Ogedengbe led to a TO call with 6.6s and a one-point margin.  A Lions tactical foul on the restart sent Owumi to the line again but once again he only scored the second – and there was just enough time for Lions' Perry Lawson to burst through the middle for a two-point layup to level the scores. I only just catch the moment in Clip 8.  Technical and absorbing.  79-79 at the end of the 4th quarter Overtime is five more minutes.  Ogedengbe was the first player to sit down for the duration has he reached the personal foul limit of five.  Wolves led again at 82-79, but here’s a clip which has the scores levelling at 86-86 with a home timeout called at 2.4s on the clock.  Nothing came of it, so we went into a second spell of overtime.  86-86 at the end of the first period of overtime Wolves had now lost Kaslauskas, and Lions lost Martin.  Two free throws gave a six-point lead to Wolves at 93-87 as other players reached the five-foul limit.  The game ended in last-ditch timeout ploys as finally the Lions ran out of resilience.  Final score 98-91
The programme
What Next?
Half-term week, so could be some last-minute decisions depending on weather and other commitments, so follow @GrahamYapp for details.

Lion Down at the Palace

Hopperational details
Date & Venue	Friday 28 December 2012 at the Crystal Palace Sports Centre
Result	London Lions 88 Cheshire Phoenix 92
Competition	BBL Trophy (knockout cup competition)
Hopping	Number 14 on the hoophopping list.  I called it courthopping until today, but like both clubs here, I have changed the name.
Pre-match preparation
This was an impulsive trip in an attempt to put a safe distance between me and an industrial supply of Quality Street and other health foods. Unfortunately it brought be closer to a hotdog stall. The sides have similar league records around the 50:50 mark so it should be a competitive game.
This match in one sentence
The Lions made too many unforced errors and Phoenix kept cool heads at the end of a strange game played in a rather muted atmosphere.
So what?
Phoenix go through and Lions are out.
The drama unfolds
There were only seven Phoenix players suited and booted for action, which did not bode well, and my heart sank when Lions took an early grip on the game, scoring 2 to 1 and opening a healthy lead.  Whether complacency set in, who knows, but Phoenix battled back to 22-22 and then took the lead with a three from Gabe Haskins.  One more Lions score kept the margin at one point at the end of what had turned out to be a high-scoring first quarter.  26-27 at the end of the first quarter In the second, Phoenix pulled their lead out to eight at 29-37 and here is my scene-setter clip which has Lions’  Adrien Sturt scoring one of several personal and Lions threes, but Phoenix matched the scoring rate and the clip ends at 38-45.  Lions are in purple. Another run of threes, however, including two more from Sturt, brought the Lions back level and we reached a beautifully symmetric score at the halfway point.  Sturt’s personal tally was now 22.  50-50 at the end of the second quarter By the time I took my next clip, midway through the third, it was still too close to call at 56-56. The period ended with the visitors holding a narrow two-point lead.  66-68 at the end of the third quarter In the final quarter, Phoenix had the veteran Shaun Myers back on court.  They successfully defended two periods of 24s shotclock time and then Myers hit a three to give them a lead of 71-76.  They were able to hold the lead at somewhere in the five to seven point range as the time ticked away.  Here’s a clip, and by the end of it the score is 78-83. The play became somewhat scrappy and tense and coaches began to utilise the timeouts.  Phoenix still held their 7-point lead at 78-85 with 2min31s on the clock.  The body language of the Lions and their coach increasingly showed frustration as plays were not executed and the unforced error count went up.  This clip takes us down to less than a minute to go, and Lions have got it back to a 4-point game. Phoenix ran down the clock as much as allowed by the shotclock rules.  Chez Marks added a point from a freethrow so the margin was 83-88 as the clock showed 23 seconds of playing time.  Here’s another clip from this critical stage of the game. Sturt’s three got the score to 88-89 with eleven seconds to go but Lions lost possession on a final critical play, and were then forced to foul to stop the clock again with 2.9 seconds remaining.  Chez Marks kept his nerve and sank both free throws to seal a morale-boosting win.  For Lions, Adrien Sturt led all scorers with 31 (and 9 rebounds) and #15 Tayo Ogedengbe (who turns out to be a friend of a friend of a friend I now see from Twitter!) had 20.  The bulk of the Phoenix points came from Jerome Gumbs with 24 and Myers with 23, but the latter's 13 rebounds were also a big factor in the game.  Final score 88-92
The programme
Something random
I continue to get the feeling that top-level basketball is struggling in this country at the moment and the clubs are not as secure as they were a few years back.  Cheshire have had two incarnations in the same season!  Earlier this year I dropped in to see them at the Northgate Arena one Sunday afternoon as Cheshire Jets.  A few weeks later they were under new management and ownership as Cheshire Phoenix, continuing with the fixture list.  Last season, Lions (as MK Lions) had moved to a new arena as plans for a new home alongside the football stadium melted away – but this also proved unsustainable and the franchise has decided to relocate to the Copper Box when it is released as an Olympic legacy venue.  They have become London Lions and so this Crystal Palace season is very much one of transition.  I’d enjoyed many hoops nights in Milton Keynes over the years – but this one had all the atmosphere of Pluto.  The fact that MK has lost a sports team to south London has caused some wry amusement amongst my football followership.
Hopping for Moorfields Update
Nothing to report – hoops don’t count for this purpose!
What Next?
Maybe, if there is a dry enough bit of England, groundhopping landmark #500 on the lifetime list on Saturday afternoon.  At the time of writing (11.57pm on Friday night) there are pitch inspections scheduled in most places I would be interested in, and I will again be using the randomness of Twitter to decide where, if anywhere, I will be going.