Hopperational details
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Date &
Venue
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Friday 10
December 2012 at the Basketball Arena, Milton Keynes.
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Result
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Milton Keynes Lions 87 Durham
Wildcats 74
The first
time that these two clubs have ever met.
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Competition
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British
Basketball League Championship
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Hopping
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A second
successive MK-based tangent for this blog, but whilst I was a total hockey
virgin, I do have previous with the BBL but not in the last five years or
so. The Yapplets and I were fairly frequent visitors to the Lions, Leopards (then in Essex) and Tigers (then in the Thames Valley) of the time. Gotta love the big cats. However, this is the first time I have seen
the Lions at their new venue. The BBL
is the highest level of club basketball in the UK and the majority of the
starting fives are from overseas and/or have gained citizenship rights over
their playing careers.
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This match in one sentence
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Milton
Keynes woke up in the second quarter and took control with a crowd-pleasing
performance from Demarius Bolds including an outrageous three-pointer at the
end of the third.
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So what?
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There are
11 teams in the league – Lions now have a 3-4 win-lose record and are one of
several teams level in mid-table.
Wildcats are the newcomers to this level this season and with a 1-7
record have yet to find their feet.
Newcastle Eagles look to be in charge with an 8-0 record this morning.
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Something
random
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I can’t
quite work out why basketball isn’t doing better in this country. It’s probably because TV interest has waxed
and waned, and all down to money. MK
has been one of the few stable franchises in recent years. The Lions club still has many of the same
non-playing faces that I recognised from five years ago, but it has managed
to move on. The new venue is better
than the old one, and the club’s links with schools look to be
exemplary. The community side of a
basketball club’s operation seem to be a much higher percentage of their
activity than say, a football club.
Their crowds are up, with a high proportion of youngsters in
attendance.
Club owner
Vince Macaulay exudes basketball. He
has been league chairman and club coach over the years and now, I see, is
co-commentator and general event animateur as the clips will confirm.
When I last
saw the Lions, they were playing solid basketball based on defence under the
master tutelage of BBL legend Nigel Lloyd.
The 2011-12 lions are coached by Mike New and it looked to be a more
athletic higher-tempo style. I’m no
expert in this game – I understand the rules on paper, but when the refs make
the calls I have hardly ever spotted the fouls myself. For a supposedly non-contact sport, there
is a great deal of contact!
Finally,
old habits and all that, a mention for “Majestix”, a dance group from Icknield
High School who made a brief appearance at half-time. Great performance.
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The drama unfolds
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Lions got
the ball from the tip-off but Wildcats intercepted a lazy pass and broke for
the first basket of the evening. That
set the tone for the first quarter.
Wildcats led 21-7 at one stage and coach New used an early time-out to
reset the team. Demarius Bolds showed
a few signs of what was to come. Here’s
the last action of the quarter. 16-27
The Lions
were altogether more efficient and effective in the second quarter and
amassed 30 points. The clip, again the
closing stages, shows the moment they took the lead in the game for the first
time. Three of the four-point margin
came from an on-buzzer foul. (A player
gets three free throws worth a point each if fouled in the act of
shooting.) The chances of that long-range
shot going in are low (but see below) so it seemed at the time a needless
three points to give to Bolds. 46-42
The third
quarter was 20-17 to Lions who therefore extended their lead to seven
points. The quarter ended with the
most outrageous three-pointers I have ever witnessed live. Watch this one if you watch nothing else! 66-59
In the
fourth quarter, Wildcats narrowed the gap to six for a short while but in the
end New was able to send on the support players for some court time as they
saw out the game comfortably. It was
never dull because Bolds stayed on until the last minute, when he finally sat
down with 37pts against his name. Here
are the closing moments. Final Score 87-74
This pic of
the final scoreboard shows the number of fouls committed by each player as a
light next to their squad number. This
is important because a player is not allowed to continue in the match if they
reach five. The 4 is for the 4th
quarter and the 5 and 6 at the bottom were the number of fouls committed by
each team in the quarter – this affects whether a foul automatically gives a
free throw to the opponents (i.e. when it reaches five). The match score is
self-explanatory and I am 99% certain that the other lights next to the timer
are for counting the timeouts called.
One other piece of kit not shown is the shot clock – in this league
teams have 24 seconds to get a shot in the air or they surrender
possession. With rebounds, steals,
assists and such-like, this is another stat-rich game for those so inclined.
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Man-of-the-Match
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A snippet from the programme
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“(The Wildcats’) slow and controlled
style of play is in contrast to our open court high-tempo style of basketball
and so we must be aware of the game being played too slow for our liking.”
… and so
the Lions found themselves 9pts down at the end of the first quarter to the
faster and more mobile team at that stage.
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What I learned today
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I can
safely recommend an evening of top-flight basketball as a fast-and-furious,
loud and brash, fun family-friendly experience. If nothing else, standing next to the players at the end of the game (such as MK's 6'11" Adrian Sturt) is always rather entertaining if you are 5'10" like me. I’ll certainly be going back to the game from time to
time.
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What Next?
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Back to
footy groundhopping this afternoon! Unfinished business in the Middlesex League ... I will be watching Willesden Constantine at Kodak (Harrow) which was a team selected by Facebook friend Rob Summerfield but thwarted virally up to now. Seriously tempted by some ice hockey at Slough to follow!
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