In this week’s we were in Edinburgh to watch the bottom two teams in the SBC men’s Division 1, Pleasance BC and Glasgow Storm in a bid to get their season back on track. Storm really turned up on the day and came away with a resounding 85-42 victory against the home side.
Coming out of the gate Steven Murdoch would strike first for Storm, hitting his first two shots as he made his way inside for the finish and cleaned up a miss from outside. Storm jumped out to an early lead in the first as Lewis Neill finished with a nice scoop layup inside and Murdoch hit another jumper from the elbow. Despite this, Mateo Soria would put the first 7 points on the board for Pleasance, hitting his first two shots as he sank a three-pointer, knocked down a jumper off of the feed from Marco Giannco in transition and then, out of a timeout, finishing with a nice finger roll inside.
However, Storm would begin to add to what was to be a substantial lead by the end of the game as Murdoch would sink two more shots, Neill converted on a two-pointer and Donald Sampley knocked down a three-pointer at the end of the quarter to give Storm a 21-14 lead.
In the second quarter, Glasgow Storm widened the gap even more as they settled into the flow of the game and knocked down their shots at a good rate. Storm would quickly turn the game into a double-digit deficit for the home side after Sampley and Neill both knocked down shots from the wing to give them a 11-point lead. Despite the size advantage possessed by Pleasance, they really struggled to convert inside even after grabbing a number of offensive boards. By halftime, Storm were up 41-26 as both teams went to the locker room.
It was in the second half that Strom really pulled away from their opponents, outscoring Pleasance 24-7 in the third period. As was an issue for most of the game, while Storm piled on the points Pleasance just couldn’t make any of their shots on the offensive side of the floor. They were poor closing out their men and could not keep up with Glasgow’s excellent ball movement, presenting Storm with a number of open shots from the three-point line. Having already scored 2 threes’ in the first half, Donald Sampley went on to knock down 5 more before the game was done giving him 25 points for the game in total.
“Donald came in and we all know Donald can shoot but you got to facilitate and get him the ball,” said Storm coach, Iain MacLean. “But we also had another two or three guys who were really on it today and Donald came in and did what he does well, shot the ball well and broke the game open a wee bit in the second half”
As the game reached garbage time and both teams benches saw court time, the game ultimately came to a close with Storm coming away with the 85-42 victory.
In a game where every member of Glasgow Storm got on the scoreboard, along with Sampley’s 25 point outing, Steven Murdoch had 16 points and Lewis Neill also had 14 points. Mateo Soria was Pleasance’s top scorer with 17 points.
“Awful,” said Pleasance coach, Scott Sanford when asked about his team’s performance, “As I’ve said to the guys, we’ve not been training. I take nothing away from them (Storm), they shot the ball very well, especially Sampley… We took the wrong shots, we gave up open shots, we tried to dribble and force it, just all the wrong decisions, we weren’t moving off the ball and we just gave up opportunities.”
In regards to what Storm needs to work on to get their campaign back on track, Iain Maclean had the following to say;
“We just need a bit of belief, a bit of momentum, a bit of confidence but we still know we’ve got to play better so coming back after the festive period is always a challenge, getting back in shape and focused. We’ve got to get another couple of wins as quickly as we can in the new year. We’ve got a couple of guys coming back that’ll help us and we’ll just keep working hard.”
Glasgow Storm will kick off the new year with a game at home against Glasgow University on the 13th of January. Pleasance will travel away to Dunfermline Reign on the same day.
