UEL’s men’s basketball 1st team won a close and thrilling game against Hertfordshire University 81 – 76 in front of an excited and entertained home crowd on Wednesday afternoon.
After losing their season opener to UWE, University of the West of England, UEL were aiming to make it bounce back victory in front of a supportive home crowd and appeared in good spirits while going through their warmups performing a variety of dribbling skills and dunk attempts.
Back and Forth
The first quarter started off less exhibition and more workmanlike as UEL lost the opening tip off but put up some good blocks and defensive plays leading to a fast break and easy layup from number 13 Igor Stokic to get the first points on the board. After a few basket exchanges between the teams Hertfordshire began to up the pace, racing up and down the court at will, forcing UEL to take several time outs with the hope of slowing down Hertfordshire’s attack. (1ST Q: 13 – 12)
The second quarter started with Hertfordshire hitting three successive 3’s and picking up extra shots attempts as UEL returned to the game slightly off the pace and committing unnecessary fouls. Sensing a lack of rhythm in the UEL team, Hertfordshire continued to power through and won a number of dubious calls from the ref to the annoyance of UEL’s head coach Dave Greenaway who was hit with a technical foul.
Pick and Roll
The technical may have been the spark the home team needed as straight after Hertfordshire scored their free shot, UEL produced one of their best passages of play with Daniel Delgado and Mohamed Mohamed performing some nice pick and roll work around the perimeter. Contagiously the rest of the team began to ‘click’ as UEL went on an eight points to zero run to go into halftime just two points down (H/T 35 – 37).
Such a close game had the crowds grasping onto the edge of their seats as in the 3rd quarter both teams continued to exchange baskets, fouls and technicals as Herefordshire’s coach was also hit with a technical foul for arguing with the ref and his assistant. The home crowd got behind their team even louder than before encouraging UEL to protect the paint with shouts of ‘Defence. Defence. Defence. Defence’ (3rd Q: 51 -53)
Power Forward
Still two points behind UEL’s drew for their big man, number 15 Raphael Jegede who re-entered the game at the start of the 4th and singlehandedly gate-crashed Herefordshire’s defence with countless direct drives, finished with a mix tough lay ups and thunderous dunks. Hertfordshire could not deal with his strength and his teammates ball movement and the hosts managed to create a five-point gap which they did not relinquish as the game played out.
Speaking to Rising East after the game assistant coach Flo Larkai said, “The guys dug deep, a few times we were a bit undisciplined, but the guys took accountability. We’ll now watch film, clean out some of the things that went wrong and strengthen the things that we did right.”
UEL are away to Solvent next week as they hope to make it two wins on the bounce.
