An awful first half sealed the Kent Crusaders’ fate in the National Cup. In a very physical game the Division 3 Brixton Topcats forced a weak Crusaders side into making lots of mistakes as they led by 26 at halftime and by as much as 37 points in the third quarter.
“There are no excuses for the performance we put in today”, said Crusaders head coach Mads Olesen. “For the first 25 minutes we played absolutely no defence whatsoever and let Brixton dominate the game physically. Individually and collectively we didn’t do a job. We let Brixton walk by us and missed an amazing number of layups around the basket.”
From the beginning of the game Brixton scored at will against both the Crusaders man-to-man and zone defences, slicing into the key for easy baskets. In the other end the guests struggled to get anything going against the tough physical home team who effectively disrupted any kind of offensive flow for Crusaders. Turnover upon turnover sealed the Crusaders’ fate as Brixton got up 22-9 after the first quarter and 46-22 at half time.
Things didn’t change much at the start of the third quarter. Although the Crusaders seemed to be putting in more of an effort Brixton managed to go on a 20-5 run to start the second half.
Down 37, 64-27 the reality of the game finally seemed to hit the Crusaders, and they started getting both stops on defence and hitting the basket. Led by Parker, Harris and Betts on offence and Lyons on defence the away team narrowed the lead to 22, 76-54 with five minutes left.
“It wasn’t a change in tactics, it was a change in attitude”, said Olesen of the change. “Realistically we were never going to win the game at that point, but at least we gave it a good go, and showed that we are not as bad as the start of the game suggested. With a little luck we could have scored 5 or 7 points in the next two minutes and brought it within 15 with 3 minutes left, which might have made Brixton a little nervous. As it were it didn’t happen, and when we tried to force the matter and press full court and foul to stop the clock Brixton ran off a string of unanswered points”.
At the end of the game Brixton went on a 15-3 run, but it hardly mattered as the game was already decided.
The Crusaders have now lost three games in a row after winning six straight to start the season and Olesen knows something has to change: “It’s time to regroup and focus on the things we do well, the things we need to do to win. It sounds funny after a game like this, but defence is our bread and butter, and we will be back in the sports hall this week focusing on that, and I’m sure we’ll put in a much better performance against London Met next week.”
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