Ex-UM Game #5 vs Swoosh

Xballer League - Game Update

Ex-UM's last Sunday's game was against Swoosh, a non-chinese, team comprised mostly of former UiTM players.

Individual fundamental basketball skills of their players were not particular good but they did have 2 VERY big (bit chunky) and tall centers and most of their players were athletic. It therefore became important for us to (a) box out and control our defensive rebounds and (b) play a fast game to tire out their bigs.

When both their centers were in, we really had a tough time trying to box both of them out. Fortunately, their fitness were not good and our front court players could repeatedly beat them down court so that we either scored on primary or secondary fast break, or drew fouls. Eventually, they couldn't keep both centers on the floor at the same time (as they kept giving up fast break points) and could only keep 1 of them on the floor at a time. That allowed us to box out their lone center and control the boards much better.

On offense, Ming Lip continued is excellent play (and was top scorer with 24 points) and Leong continued his high percentage shooting. Chuan was his usual aggressive and effective self. Pin also was very effective offensively especially after some one from our bench "bet" him a Heineken if he makes his free throw (which he did!!). Ben had a bit of an "off" day as he missed a few easy shots but still played a steady game and good defense.

Overall, again, a good team effort. All players are beginning to play better and better especially our bench. Both Juin Haur and Hung had their second straight steady and aggressive game ... applying the "kiss" principle ... keep it simple and steady. All players however have to react better to on-ball pressure in our back court and support players being pressured (especially when that player is a front court player who just got a defensive rebound and not the PG).

Although the score stayed close in the 1st quarter and the 1st half of the 2nd quarter, we could see that Swoosh's player's stamina were disappearing fast. When the starting unit went back into the game, fresh, at around the 5 minute mark of the 2nd quarter, we made our push and had a 15 point lead by half time. From there we just kept building and building on the lead and won the game comfortably.

Scoring distribution (by quarter):-

No.5 Ben - 0+2+0+0=2
No. 7 Leong - 0+4+3+2=9
No. 8 Juin Haur - 0+0+2+0=2
No. 9 Kok - 0+0+4+0=4
No. 10 Pin - 0+7+4+2=13
No. 11 Chuan - 5+5+2+4=16
No. 13 Ming Lip - 9+5+2+8=24
No. 15 Bik Yih - 0+0+0+2=2

FINAL SCORE : Ex-UM wins 72-37
Ex-UM's record is now : 4-1

Next games this coming weekend :-

vs. "Friends" at 6:30pm on Saturday, 21/6/2008; and
vs. "SST" at 7:00pm on Sunday, 22/6/2008.