The Newcastle Eagles tipped off the first of their brutal three games in five days schedule in the Vertu Arena on Wednesday night with an 80-108 defeat to Iraklis B.C. of Greece in a European North Basketball League group match. Their third defeat from three in this season’s competition.
Not the ideal way for Head Coach Marc Steutel’s players to start the run with a tough trip in the SLB Championship at Sheffield on Friday night and then a visit to Caledonia on Sunday afternoon in the SLB Trophy on the horizon.
The defeat to the Greeks did have some positives for Newcastle. The debut of young British guard Max Matthews, the continuing improvement of Academy graduate Sauver Kande and the performance of USA guard Ray’Sean Taylor who had 28-points on the night in the losing cause.
Taylor gave his very honest views on the performance against Iraklis post-game before discussing his teams visit to Sheffield to take on the Sharks.
“They (Iraklis) got on us from the jump. We didn’t meet their physicality and they just out-played us, out-smarted us and out-hustled us. That was something that was unacceptable. That’s pretty much the story of how things have been going for us and we have to find a way to get over the hump.”
The team from Thessaloniki did indeed ‘jump’ out early on the Eagles and by the end of the first quarter had already established a twenty-point lead at 30-10. Newcastle did have a tied second period but then lost the third by eight points making the last ten minutes virtually irrelevant.
Taylor went on to talk about his own performance and feelings as he contemplated the latest Eagles loss.
“I’m a winner at the end of the day and definitely want to get in the winning column. My points are pretty much garbage and they didn’t even matter as we were out played as a team and we’ve got to be better.”
Now Newcastle and Taylor have to recover quickly and get the Sharks in their sights. The two sides have already met twice in the league this season with both games going to the Yorkshire outfit. Sheffield winning 78-73 on their own court and then 99-95 in Newcastle as Taylor is aware of.
“It’s another tough game for us. But we’ve got to tie the series up. We’ve got to make it 2-2 and that’s our goal. We’ve played them twice and both were good games. They made a few more plays than us so hopefully we can make a few more plays on them this time.”
Eagles were once again short-handed on Wednesday with newest recruit Gus Okafor joining Marco Anthony, Josh Ward-Hibbert and Malcolm Smith on the side-lines. Taylor is unsure whether any of those will be back but he is not looking at that specifically.
“Hopefully we might have one or two back but at the end of the day whoever is able to play we’ve got to go out there and we’ve got to execute our game plan and try to win the game.”
It’s not going to be easy but life in basketball and the SLB Championship seldom is. Results and wins have to be earned and Taylor and his teammates know that as they go into the Canon Medical Arena on Friday with a 7:30pm tip-off.
