Newcastle Eagles v Glasgow Rocks preview
BBL Cup – Friday 11 November 2011
Sport Central (19:30)
The biggest rivalry in British basketball returns to Sport Central on Friday evening as Newcastle Eagles and Glasgow Rocks meet in BBL Cup action.
The prize for the winner is a two-leg semi-final against either Cheshire Jets or Jelson Homes DMU Leicester Riders, with the final scheduled for Sunday January 15 at the NIA in Birmingham.
It will be the third meeting this season between the old rivals after they split their two BBL Trophy group stage match-ups. A dominant Eagles’ display saw them win 107-73 at Sport Central, leaving Rockets with a mountain to climb in the return. Sterling Davis’ side did manage to beat the Eagles in what is their only defeat of the season so far, but the 76-70 margin wasn’t enough to prevent Newcastle going through to the semi-final. That win also ended a run of 13 straight Eagles’ wins in games between the two sides, with Newcastle currently holding a 47-26 lead in the all-time series between the teams.
Unsurprisingly, Eagles’ player-coach Fabulous Flournoy knows what to expect from the Rocks on Friday: “We know a lot about Rocks and they know a lot about us. They have seven or eight players who can all hurt you and in particular [Andrew] Wedemire and [Danny] Huffour are playing really well off the bench at the moment. Each game we have played against them has been a low scoring battle and I would not expect this to be any different. The team that executes the best under pressure will win.”
Eagles go into the game on the back of a hard-fought 100-88 victory against Prestige Homes MK Lions, and Flournoy was pleased with how his depleted team played: “We played okay. It was an adjustment not having Paul [Gause] and being down to six senior players. At times we became a little caught up in the tempo that they wanted to play but provided we did not let our energy levels drop I thought we were in control of the game. Everyone did what I asked, I really can’t single anyone out.
“For MK, we did a decent job on [Demarius] Bolds and he still had 22 points and 14 rebound, he really is a talented player. Howard Crawford was also impressive with his energy and finishing ability.”
The Eagles are set to be without Gause again this weekend as he continues to recover from a tear to a calf muscle and captain Andrew Bridge admitted that it had been tough to adapt without him last weekend: “It was a tough game. Obviously losing Paul the day before didn’t give us much time to prepare and that threw us out a bit. It’s another injury, but we got the win, so that’s positive. It’s okay having only six guys when you’re playing once a week, but it would certainly affect us if we had back-to-back games. We’ve had an extra day off this week just to get a bit of rest, and I think we’ll be fine this weekend.”
Bridge isn’t expecting any surprises when Eagles face the Rocks again on Friday: “I think we know everything about each other. We seem to play them every other week, and we’ve met loads of times in the Cup and Trophy over the last few years. Fab and Sterling have identified how they want to play, and we know what to expect.
Rocks player-coach Sterling Davis is ready for a tough game: We have already seen the Eagles twice this season so both teams have a good idea of what to expect. Andrew Thompson has really impressed me with how quickly he has settled in to their team. He has been very consistent lately.
“In our last meeting I thought our execution was much improved from the first game on both ends of the floor.”
