The Game: Veni vedi vici! Well, Gents 1 wished it was as easy as abc playing
Twente Buzzards.
The well-oiled machine from Hengelo consists of players that trained and
competed together from their childhood.
I first noticed old veteran Keoma-jaoquim, also played for Arriba back in the
gold age and is back in his old friends. Buzzards also happened to beat Scylla
(Gent’s one opponent and number 2 in the standings). That being said: We
knew we had the better players on the whole.
Veni: The Gym in Hengelo is cold as ice, especially this time a year, the doors
are directly connected to mother nature, and the hall’s temperature is about
the same as outside. They play their games centre-court and the crowd sits
10 feet away from the court. This all makes for a nice atmosphere.
Some Gents 2 players, Luc’s girlfriend and Gijs’ parents came to support for
Arriba.
Vedi:
Arno, Silver, Alvaro, Dimitry and Gijs started for Arriba Average age: (22,5
against 26,4 years.)
From the get go it was clear that it wasn’t an easy game. Our opponent could
swing the ball around and was able to get back in time to stop the fast break.
Arriba relied on its defensive capabilities, being one of the hardest teams to
score a lot against. This combination made it a low scoring game.
Arriba could run their play but lacked execution and Buzzards didn’t shoot
well enough to hurt the students. To make things worse the 50/50 hustle
balls didn’t come our way.
Coach took a time out to shake everybody up: ‘’Do you guys wanne win? Do
you feel like fighting for it? I can tell you what to do, but in the end you have
to do it yourself! You know what, figure it out yourself. Show me you want
this’’
Bold coaching strategy, doesn’t always work out coaching man, but this time
it did. Scoring was still difficult but it was clear the team was working to force
luck it’s way. In the brake the game was about even, advantage Arriba. Solid
defense and lack of execution summed up the first half.
Second halve: Zone, Arriba came out swinging, three steels resulted in 6
points and finally we played with the confidence that only one team should
win this game. Silver even called out an iso and scored (No 6 play, a pure
Iso one on one). 16 points ahead everything clicked and this is how Arriba
should play offensively.
Somehow the students stopped scoring for a moment and buzzards got some
points. Arriba wanted to score and push the tempo to finish it. Under the
pressure the tempo was however best used by buzzards and it was a close
game again.
Vici: Did Arriba miss it’s clutch-moment-basketball? Well we had some hustle
ball in the end, getting the rebounds and fouls our way, to seal the deal.
Conclusion a well grinded win: 67-71 advantage D.B.V.Arriba.
This Saturday we play the number two in our league: We need to have 3th
quarter performance and could use your support to get us there!
Lots of love,
Gents 1