Another exciting week for basketball in Greenwich would see 4 games in total as the men have their first league game of the season and the under 18s attempt to maintain their unbeaten start to the season and progress to the 4th round of the under 18 national cup.
Greenwich Titans v Westminster Warriors
The NBL Division 2 league opener saw an interesting encounter between established division 2 team Westminster Warriors and our newly promoted men’s team. The atmosphere was fierce at the recently renovated Moberley Sports Centre as music belted out; fans jeered and cheerleaders screamed support for their Warriors, this was always going to be a difficult game for our boys but one which would allow the coach and team to gauge where they were currently and the goals for the rest of the season.
Titans got off to a fantastic start as new point guard Moncreiffe-Meade led the team to a 14 – 0 lead in the first quarter as shell shocked Warriors were undone by the pressure defence, intensity and decision making on offence. As substitutions were made at the end of the quarter Warriors started to find their feet and ended the quarter only down by 4 points. Titans clearly impacted by the collapse at the end of the first quarter seemed shell shocked in the 2nd relying heavily on the 3 point shot and going away from what brought the team the original lead, half time could not come soon enough and the 15 minutes afforded allowed the team to address the issues and prepare for war in the second half as we were now down by 10 points.
The 3rd quarter saw Titans players Jack Green and Arturo Noha-Pascual hit 2 big shots with no response from the home team cutting the warriors lead to 4 points. Strong pressure for the remainder of the 3rd quarter ensured that we finished down by 3 points and with all to play for.
After early foul trouble, inside players Ray Akpofure and Jake Murphy, once again started dominating both the defensive and offensive boards, a beautiful 3 point shot from Ray in the corner and a turnaround jumper from Jake put Titans up in the 4th and opened up a 6 point lead and one that Titans would not relinquish. A chaotic end to the game with some dubious refereeing calls made the game closer than it should have been, however Titans were victorious with a 2 point win over the much fancied Westminster warriors in front of the heckling new London BBL team City Royals Coach Junior Williams.
Top Scorers
Ray Akpofure – 23 Points
Jake Murphy – 21 Points
Brandon Moncrieffe-Meade – 11 Points
Next Up Derbyshire Warriors in the first home league fixture were Titans will look to make amends for the last game played there against Sussex Bears.
“The team is only going to get better, we are still figuring out our identity and several key players are missing from the line up at present so we will take each game at a time and continue to develop”. Coach Ashley
Greenwich Titans U18 vs London Pulse
The Greenwich Titans tipped off against London Pulse this weekend at their regular home court The John Roan School. The game started in true Titans fashion with lots of fast breaks and aggressive defence from Greenwich.
Pulse were slow to start but were able to knock down back to back threes and score finish around the rim to keep their hopes alive. They then started the quarter with a series of free throws to edge the gap even more, however the Titans would not be stifled and scores from Seun Babalola and Lanre Ayinla boosted the Titans score before the half came to an end. It was an even scoring outing for the Titans as several players poured in double figures and did a great job defensively as a unit.
Despite scoring efforts from Felekis (13) and Baker (11) the Pulse fell to the Titans 84 -47. The Titans next game will be Durham Wildcats in the 3rd round of the cup.
Greenwich Titans U14s v Eastside Eagles
The under 14s fell to a disappointing loss to the Eagles in a low scoring encounter 44 – 29, this was a game that titans would have expected to win , especially after the high scoring game 2 weeks prior against London Thunder.
Surprisingly defence was the issue at this game, which you would not think given the home team only score 44points, a number of lessons were learnt from this game and the players will be better prepared on the next encounter.
Greenwich Titans U18s vs Durham Wildcats
In the second half of a back to back weekend, the Titans faced off against the Wildcats and famed northern coach David Elderkin. This would be the first time an U18 Titan’s team would make it to the fourth round of the cup and were ready for the challenge.
The Titans came out aggressively, scoring in a number of ways lead initially by Lanre Ayinla who continued his scoring effort from the night before. However The Wildcats were certainly not just going to lay down, they were able to create offence out of cuts to the basket and keen offensive rebounding which kept them in the game. What started as a runaway quarter ended 22-19 in favour of the Titans.
Durham would keep each quarter close with sharpshooting from inside the three point line and taking advantage of the poor rebounding effort from the Titans. Marsden from the Wildcats finished with 21 but it wouldn’t be enough as the Titans held on to win 81-65. The Titans face Feltham Warriors in the league this coming Sunday.