Maigh Cuilinn 74 (41)
Sligo All Stars 63 (25)
Maigh Cuilinn rallied late to repel a stirring second half come back by the travelling Sligo All Stars and secure their second straight home win at the University of Galway Sports Arena last Saturday on a final score of 74 to 63 in the Basketball Ireland Men’s Superleague.
Maigh Cuilinn had shot out of the blocks with their best opening quarter of the season, pouring in 30 points and being full value for their 13 point end of quarter lead.
James Connaire and Patrick Lyons were in particularly good form combining directly for nine points but also playing a key hand in the suffocating Maigh Cuilinn defence that created turnovers and transition scores.
The lead only grew in the second quarter as the visitors struggled to run any sort of coherent offence against what was outstanding Maigh Cuilinn defence and at the half time break the score was 41 to 25.
Sligo has been averaging 90 points per game on offence this season and so, even with great defence in front of them, a run was always coming. Somewhat astonishingly, their run came when their star American player Chrishon Briggs went to the bench with four fouls. Up stepped Briggs compatriot Christian William out of Indiana State who nailed ten points in the period as part of an overall 27 point onslaught by Sligo.
Unfortunately for Maigh Cuilinn, the Sligo discovery of offensive rhythm coincided with a complete loss of same for the home team. A long but generally porous looking Sligo zone defence surprisingly caused Maigh Cuilinn all sorts of problems and meant that the Galway outfit scored only 11 points in the third quarter.
It made for a thrilling fourth and final period however with then only three points between the teams. The game would tilt back and forth somewhat until the closing minutes when Ivan Basic and Joseph Tummon delivered with the necessary heroics down the stretch.
Basic, a native of Croatia, was unstoppable off the dribble while Tummon, a long time servant of the club now living in Dublin for work, showed all his experience to nail a couple of big shots and pull down key rebounds.
In the end, Maigh Cuilinn were able to savour the cheers of the huge home crowd that had turned out to support on a day when all gate receipts went to the fantastic Hope4Liam fundraiser for local man Liam Davoren who suffered a horrible accident last year.
The final score of 74 to 63 was generally a fair reflection on a contest where Maigh Cuilinn’s outstanding team defence was the star of the show, holding a normally free flowing Sligo to what was comfortably their season low.
Next up for Maigh Cuilinn is an ‘away’ match against local rivals Maree who host the Galway derby in the University of Galway Sports Arena Saturday (13 January) at 7pm.
Maigh Cuilinn Scorers: Ivan Basic 22, Grant Olsson 12, Aitor Perez 9, James Connaire 9, Patrick Lyons 9, Joseph Tummon 6, Josiah Laracey 4, Antonio Molina 3, Dylan Cunningham, Kyle Cunningham