There is no doubting that the Newcastle Eagles had a very tough weekend that saw them lose consecutive games in the SLB Championship under totally different circumstances.
A 76-50 home loss to London on Friday was followed on Sunday by a close loss at Cheshire 101-98 when the Eagles came flying back from 21-points down to almost force overtime just coming up short.
Head Coach Marc Steutel having had time ponder his thoughts and words following the Cheshire game was very clear in his analysis of how he felt the game went.
“I think it’s really difficult to try and get a consistency on a performance when the game is being managed in a very inconsistent way. You’ve got multiple guys really physical hand-checking that is deemed to be acceptable.”
“Then when you’ve got the odd singular isolation play called. Difficult that Maceo (Jack) is deemed to physically excessive with two actions leading to him only playing six minutes in the first half. That was also a challenge.”
“I was proud of the group. I think they struggled to try and find some consistency. I think the effort was there the intent was there and we really tried. There were a few possessions where we want to be a little bit cleaner defensively.”
Eagles were down 54-40 at the half and slipped further behind in the second before mounting an impressive comeback that almost got them back in the game.
Jack having the shackles released had a big second half ending up with 16 points along with the consistent Cole Long. Ray’Sean Taylor though led the Eagles in scoring with 22 points in a MVP performance. Steutel contemplated that second half.
“We wanted to switch a little bit more effectively and that’s something we tried to clean-up at half-time. I think consistently in the second half we did a good job of trying just to control what we can. That’s easier said than done when it’s a physical emotional game.”
“The management of the game I don’t think was consistent. I felt that during the game and I still feel it on reflection. I’m proud of my team. They put themselves in a position where they got really close at the end of the game.”
“I would have loved the opportunity for us to play with the same level of physicality that Cheshire did. But every time we did it wasn’t deemed to be appropriate. That’s something that I suppose we’ll look at.”
“But controlling what we can and playing that team three times in nine days is always going to be difficult. On the whole we obviously want to win basketball games. I’m proud of my team and thought my team did a lot of things well.”
“We adjusted from the first twenty minutes to the second twenty minutes. We have to make sure we continue and get back to winning ways.”
Steutel concluded thoughts on how difficult it is to play two sides in a short space of time as he mulls things over before another two games in 48 hours to follow on Friday and Sunday.
“Tough to play London in the league who have only dropped two games and then play Cheshire within 48 hours. Cheshire fixture and schedule wise have done a job and got wins on the board.”
“We need to focus on that for sure especially as we have another tough weekend coming up with Bristol at home on Friday and then having to go to Manchester. But we’ll reset and work hard to see what we can do.”
