An Alley Oop To International Hoops
The Niche Cache heads down court, cross over, fend to the chest of some muppet defender and lobs a one handed alley oop to ... wait, who's that? Ooooh that's the homie Mr International Hoops who does what he does and goes between the legs, round the back to dunk it in. Whats up. Whats up.
Shout out to International Hoops.
But the main focus of this little thingy is the Tall Blacks. The Tall Blacks who unfortunately went ice cold in the final quarter against Turkey to register an L in their first match 76-73. The TB's looked the goods with Kirk Penney, the Webster bros and Rob Loe all looking like our best options for points and a big first up win looked like a near certainty until a few missed shots when it mattered gave the game to the Turks.
There was a bit of spice with coach Nenad Vucinic getting a tech as he got a wee bit excited when an offensive foul was called on Corey Webster. Vucinic manned up and admitted that that his mistake might have been crucial, but I'm sure the players still would have loved seeing their coach so fired up and passionate. At the end of they day, the TB's missed shots they had been making the majority of earlier in the game, and that's Ball.
A few takeouts from the first game
- Kirk Penney is the man (if you didn't know).
- Both Corey Webster and younger bruv Tai look like our most exciting attacking options along with Rob Loe. That's four very solid players.
- Mika Vukona's the glue, in terms of effort.
- How we're gonna stop teams, who knows? They'll need to pump out some defence.
- Still, a massive effort to out-rebound that massive Turkish team.
- And fair play to the Turks. They brought it when it most mattered. This is a nation that finished runners up to the Yanks in the last World Cup. No shame.
Up against the Domincan Republic, the Tall Blacks carried their shooting blues with them from the Turkey match to only shoot 34% from the field and 22% from the 3-point line. As you can imagine, it's pretty hard to win when you're not scoring points. It was frustrating but the Dominicans competed harder and sunk some dagger-blow threes as the Tall Blacks tried to rally late. It was the hot hand of Tom Abercrombie that kept NZ in it early but foul trouble for Mika Vukona - the only guy with enough hustle to match the Doms - and poor bench contributions meant that they went down 76-63 in a game that they would have been pretty keen to register their first win in.
We'd probably be repeating a few of our takeouts from the first game but....
- Good to see Thomas Abercrombie lead our scorers with 22 points.
- That came at the expense of the Webster bros who logged a combined 9 points, so we've had a few decent individual performances but it'll be awesome when the team come together on a hot streak.
- We're yet to see the best of Kirk Penney yet either. Fingers crossed...
- Former Sacramento SF and current Houston depth fella Francisco Garcia was massive for the Dominican Republic. He's a former 23rd over all pick, and he dropped a game-winning 29 points from 11-15 shooting (5 of 7 from deep)!
- The Tall Blacks now must beat both Finland and Ukraine to have any chance of making the second round.
- Next up? A clash with the USA. Nothing like testing yourself against the best, right?
Assists
At least the Aussies lost their first game as well right? They went down 80-90 against Slovenia with NBA Champion Aron Baynes putting 21 points up and Goran Dragic also chucking 21 up. Peep younger bro Zoran Dragic as well. Goran and Zoran.
The Dingos then got back on track with a win over South Korea 89-55 while Senegal registered their first win in a world tourney since 1998 as they defeated Puerto Rico 82-75. Love it.