Sorry for the lack of posts but as you can see above I was busy. We had the freshers basketball tournament down in Limerick over the weekend.The team consisted of 3 starting 5 and three off the normal team. We also had three other lads with us who don't normally play. So the nine of us set off on Saturday morning.
It was an early morning wake up for us as we were on the road at eight. Thankfully everybody managed to make it there with time to spare. After a three hour drive we arrived down in Limerick. We got a quick breakfast and then got ready for our first game against limerick.
This was the home team and they definitely made us feel unwelcome. The referees were home grown lads and within the first quarter which was only seven minutes long one of our players was on four fouls. For those of you that aren't familiar that means one more and he was off as you can only have a maximum of five fouls. The crowd as well were that special breed of deathly silence when we scored but raise the roof volume when UL scored. But we persevered with a 10 point win over the home team. This was our first win of the freshers competition and the first win DKIT had in any competition so far this season.
We then went and checked in to the hotel. Rooms were allocated and we were all in good spirts when we went back for our second game against DIT. We lined out but were slow off the mark and DIT were off to the better start. Due to those two slow quarters we were simply playing catch up and went on to lose by 12 points.At the end the group stood like this;
DIT-4
DKIT-4
UL-4
We found out that we were going through to the plate semi-finals against Cork IT. UL had also gone through as they had beaten DIT in their first game so went through as best third place team in the three groups.
*****SCENE MISSING*****
We woke up Sunday morning and then went to the arena. We all decided against a breakfast and got ready for the game we took our team photo.
We started the match against CIT and by the end of the first quarter it was Dundalk IT 20 Cork IT 2. Some awesome three point shooting from one of our newest recruits stunned the opposition. We went on to win the match by roughly 30 points.
Then we heard we were playing UL in the final.
We got some breakfast and went back over. We walked on to the court. For the next 40 minutes what followed was a game that had some terrible defence by us some mis-allocation of points by the table/third official and some of the most awesome 3 pointers I have seen in a long time. Our point guard Tommy made 6 3 pointers within two quarters. No matter what UL tried no matter how many players put on him he couldn't be stopped but unfortunately the game was still lost by 4 points. for the second time in two days a slow start is what lost the match for us. The fact that the incorrect score was put up on the score board shouldn't have mattered.Even if it may have given the opposition a psychological advantage, we should have beaten them.
We then sat down and watched the cup final between DCU who looked like the favourites and NUI Galway. NUI went on to win the game. They weren't better on any kind of technical level. They were definitely not as physical as the opposition but they won it. This was down to a group of players who new how to play as a team. Our team have very talented individuals and player for player we were one of the strongest teams there but we still don't know how to play like a team.
We got some food and most of us then slept for the journey back. Got back to dundalk about half eight.
On reflection we did well. It was the first time Dundalk had entered a team in the freshers tournament and also we were the first Dundalk IT team to ever make it in to a basketball final. That is somthing to be proud of but we knew we should have won it.
So now our attention turns back to the league. With the taste of a win in our mouths it's time to make them more frequent.Role on Carlow IT!!!!
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