The signs are ominous for Bristol Flyers and the rest of the BBL ahead Newcastle Eagles’ visit to the WISE Basketball Arena on Saturday with the league leaders in fine form.
Player-coach Fab Flournoy feels confidence is still growing in his group after they came through a tough battle at Plymouth Raiders last time out to stretch their league winning streak to nine and remain in top spot.
“Plymouth is always a tough trip for us and we rarely shoot the ball well there,” said Flournoy.
“In truth we started sluggish and missed a lot of makeable shots. However our defence was pretty consistent throughout probably outside of a period towards the end of the first half we felt we had the game under control.
“We have now ground out five tough wins on the road and that certainly gives the group confidence in each other.”
Eagles will also take encouragement from the fact they secured a comfortable 98-72 success when these teams met last month, and this time Flyers will be without star Doug Herring.
This will be the second half of a tough back-to-back for Eagles, however, as they travel to Sheffield Sharks on Friday – although this does not concern Flournoy.
Flournoy added: “After going from Newcastle to Plymouth in a day, believe me, Sheffield to Bristol is not a long trip.
“Obviously it will be important for our guys to recover properly after Friday night’s game but back-to-backs are relatively common in the BBL and I don’t see it as any excuse for a reduction in performance.
“Obviously losing Herring will mean that they are slightly different but they have a talented bench and a very resourceful coaching staff so I expect them to provide a real test.”
Last time they met:
Newcastle Eagles 98 Bristol Flyers 72 (BBL Championship, Sport Central, 17/10/2014)
What they say:
Flyers coach Andreas Kapoulas: “I’m looking at the players to kind of respond to last week’s performance and hopefully we can put in two good performances in and maybe secure a win.
“Playing at home, it’s a great atmosphere that makes our players play a little harder. On Saturday we can’t think of the game as a whole, we need to break it down and every quarter we will need to put in a good, defensive performance.”
