13.10.2017: St Mirren West College - Sony Centre Fury 93:80
CHAMPIONS FURY LOSE UNDEFEATED RECORD
SONY CENTRE FURY 80 ST.MIRREN 93
Scottish Basketball Senior Men’s Division 1 Championship
Fury Men suffered their first loss of the season and only their third in all competitions in the past 2 seasons.
Despite a game high 27 pts from Lithuanian point guard Eddy Leginas, Fury could not pull back a double digit lead the Saints side had gained by the third period.
The teams traded baskets in the opening quarter and it was clear that this was going to be a tough road game for the Falkirk side, Leginas opening Fury’s scoring with a 2 and 3pt plays. Austrian Adam Hammerschmidt and Bryan Munnoch added the next 9 as Captain Keith Bunyan finished the period with back to back threes to trail the Saints at 22-20.
Kornelius Dauksas retained his starting 5 spot and worked hard to keep Saints key forward Chris Cleary to 3pts in the first period, but in so doing picked up 2 fouls forcing Headcoach John Bunyan into some difficult match ups. That proved key in the second stanza when Cleary was able to go on a 7 point scoring run that broke the team’s deadlock and saw Saints hold an 8 point half-time lead. Fury’s Bryan Munnoch was key to keeping Fury in the game with 6 personal in that period.
The third was another basket for basket affair with neither side able to establish any kind of dominance. With a 24-22 scoreline to Saints in the third their lead was now 10 going into the final quarter and all to play for.
8 personal from Leginas in that period and with Bunyan and Dauksas sharing 10, they were the big numbers for Fury. The final period saw Fury look at changes in their defence but two threes from Dale Grieve were pivotal in Fury having to chase the game in the final minutes but were unable to get closer than the final scoreline. Leginas finished strongly for Fury with 11 personal in the 4th , a tally that included 3 threes.
While the Sony sponsored side hit 11 threes in the match it paled in comparison to last season’s record 21 threes against the Saints side in the corresponding fixture and for the Saints team it was win on balance they deserved.
While Leginas had 27pts, with Bunyan and Hammerschmidt sharing 28 the only other significant scorers for Fury were Munnoch on 12 and Dauksas on 7.
Fury Headcoach John Bunyan commented to Hearaldsport –
‘ Our defence struggled tonight and giving up 93 points meant we had to combat that with some very good offence and while our numbers were decent they were not good enough. We are still adjusting to the loss of Ross Gibson which we knew would be key and while Kornelius has in the main done a great job, we also could not play Walter Lubeigt who returned for us against the Kings last week – he also is now out long term re injury issues. We have to look at where this leaves us, particularly in terms of defence if we are to maintain our season challenge in the 4 National competitions we are in. We have now moved to 5 wins and 1 loss in the Championship and are joint top with Saints and Blaze who we play at home in 2 weeks time. In between we have another tough road game against a much improved Edinburgh Uni team who should have beaten Saints last week.
Tonight’s game saw us allow as big numbers as I can recall from Saints guards with them combining for 37 points
(Barron and Grieve) and then with Nick ( Collins ) and Chris
(Cleary) combining for 46, they were in good shooting form.
We did not make good decisions at some points of our offence and actually passed up a number of very good options we had created. We will look for good sessions this week in practice and the players are already looking to make amends next week. “