If it’s true that you learn more about yourself in adversity than you do in triumph then Newcastle Eagles will have learned a lot about themselves after Sunday’s mauling at Leicester Riders in the SLB Championship.

It’s advantage Leicester in the league situation after the home side swept all four quarters and put in a superb defensive display to shut Newcastle down pretty much throughout the full forty minutes of basketball.

A consolation for head coach Marc Steutel and his battered Eagles is that they now know the size of the task facing them for the next time they have to face this rampant Riders side. That encounter will be next Sunday once again down at The Mattioli Arena, Leicester.

That one will in the second leg of the semi-final of the SLB Trophy with Newcastle holding a slender four-point lead from the first leg in Newcastle. In that game the Eagles scored 95 points. In this game over the same period of time they scored thirty points less.

Does that mean Leicester learned more about the Eagles than vice versa after that first leg? Possibly but basketball is not that simple a game. Clearly Riders were well prepared for Newcastle for this game and defensively stifled what is normally a fast-paced free scoring Eagles side.

The trick for Steutel and his charges is to turn that around next Sunday as the side’s battle to get to the final of The SLB Trophy competition to be held in January. The old adage of if one side can adjust then the other can counter being the mantra Newcastle have to adopt.

They also have to find away to combat Zach Jackson who once again turned in an MVP performance for Leicester to lead all scorers with 20 points. Jackson a class act amongst a Riders side that all contributed around his starry role. None more so than point guard Jaylin Hunter who ran the game superbly.

The Eagles only lead the game once. They scored the first five points of the game to get off to a good start. But Leicester hit back with the next 12-points unanswered and from there never relinquished their lead.

Newcastle did hit back in the first ten minutes to close the gap twice to two points before eventually trailing 23 – 20 after period 1. From there it was all Riders. They won the second quarter by six points to lead by nine at the half-time break.

The locker room tactical discussions from both sides probably from the home side, more of the same and from the visitor’s ways to turn it around. It was the home side’s strategies that prevailed in the second half.

Riders took the third quarter by eight points to take a 17-point advantage into the final period where once again they showed great defensive intensity to restrict Newcastle to a mere 8 points in the last ten minutes to effectively blow-out the Eagles completely.

For Newcastle no-one really got flowing on offence. Mike Okaura’s 13-points leading his side but that was well below his average returns for the season. Seneca Knight, De’Sean Allen-Eikens and Malcolm Delpeche also in double figures but not with significant tallies.

Eagles were beaten on virtually every statistic on the night. They will re-group, they will re-assess and whilst they’ll want to move on quickly and prepare for next week’s game they will also use this game to analyse where they need to be better for that huge Trophy second leg.

It’s a huge week for Steutel’s side who seek Cup Quarter-Finals qualification on Friday night at home to Gladiators before their return to Riders on Sunday.