The Kent Crusaders got back to winning ways on Saturday with a 29 point victory at the previously undefeated league leaders NEWI Nets and on Sunday they beat the only winless team, University of Birmingham, by 26.

The Saturday game at league leaders NEWI looked to be a tall task for the previously winless Crusaders, but at the end of the game coach Mads Olesen could rest his starters for the Sunday home game against University of Birmingham.

“We came in winless in league games after winning six straight cup games early in the season”, said Olesen. “Winning six in a row maybe we got a little big-headed, but at the same time we played two of the top teams in the league in the three first games. In this game we got back to playing fundamentally sound basketball instead of trying to win fancy, and it really made a difference”.

The game only stayed close for the first seven minutes before Crusaders made a 25-to-5 run behind six three pointers from five different shooters. At the score 15-14 to the hosts NEWI’s American player Wells had nine points, but as the Crusaders defence zeroed in on him the NEWI offence stalled, and as Crusaders stated raining threes the game quickly got out of hand. At the first break it was 33-17 to Crusaders, and five minutes and three 3-pointers later it was 48-25.

After a time-out the NEWI defence improved considerably, and they started disrupting the Kent offence. A couple of Crusaders set plays kept the home side at bay, as JP Dimandja got open for a dunk and an open lay-up, and at the half the score was 57-32.

“NEWI are a much better team than what they showed in the first half”, aid Olesen. “We caught them unaware, but you always know a quality team will make a run, and I made that very clear to the players at half time”.

After Crusaders made it 69-34 midways through the third quarter NEWI did indeed make a push for it, as they ran of 19 points to the Crusaders 9 around the third quarter break. The improbably comeback was not to be, though, as Crusaders’ Canadian star guard Simon Mitchell got back on the court for a couple of minutes, which steadied the team and stopped the NEWI run.

In the end Crusaders could take home a 96-67 victory on the back of 13 made three point shots.

“Any time you shoot as well from the outside as we did today you’re going to be hard to beat”, said Olesen. “It really opens up the middle for the big guys and fortunately we were able to take advantage”.

On Sunday Crusaders took on the winless University of Birmingham team and for the first quarter they seemed to pose a bigger threat than NEWI the day before.

Birmingham came out strong on offence against a weak Crusaders defence that let Birmingham get to the basket uncontested. After five minutes the score was 12-6 to the guests but Canadian Simon Mitchell hit a 3-pointer and Robbie Parker hit for another two to bring the hosts within one.

For the rest of the quarter the game stayed even and at the first break in the action the score was tied at 21.

Birmingham got the first two baskets of the second quarter, but then the Crusaders defence kicked in and over the next seven minutes the University side only scored one foul shot and one 2-point basket. A Pete Ayling layup and two James Harris three pointers got Crusaders the lead, and from then on they never looked back as they ran off 22 points to Birmingham’s 3.

Up 42-28 Crusaders seemed to take a bit of a break, and at the end of the quarter Birmingham finally managed to put some points on the board to make it a more manageable 49-37 at the break.

“I really wasn’t happy with the defence in the first half”, said Olesen. “We allowed them to do too much of what they wanted to do. To be effective on defence you need to take away what they do well and make them do the hard things instead and that was our focus for the second half”.

Crusaders initially came out and build the lead to 56-39, and even eight quick points from Birmingham’s Watson couldn’t shake the Crusaders who clamped down on defence and kept the away side to only 14 points in the third quarter. Indeed, in the last 13 minutes of the game the guests only managed two regular baskets as the rest of their 16 points came from the free throw line.

Without being spectacular Crusaders scored 24 points in the final quarter, as they managed to mix up three 3-pointers with raids to the basket for balanced inside-outside scoring.

In the last five minutes 17-year old Kalil Irwing, Canterbury High Basketball Academy student and Crusaders Under 18’s player, got his debut for Crusaders, scoring 2 points. Charlie Thomas, also a Academy and Under 18’s player also got on and scored a three pointer with his first touch.

The final score was 91-65 Crusaders, and coach Olesen could start to look towards the exciting end of the table:

“Overall the weekend was good for us. We proved that we need to be taken seriously, but also realized that the only way we can win is to play good, hard-nosed defence combined with fundamentally sound defence. Also we finally had a fully fit Simon Mitchell which means a lot to us. He can absolutely dominate a game, even without scoring big numbers, as he runs the team so well and plays defence at a really high level.”

Ten games were played in the weekend, with the last two teams losing their undefeated status. NEWI lost big to both Crusaders and Leeds to drop to third in the table.

On paper the Saturday game with Leeds looked to be the biggest challenge for a very talented London Mets side, and the game did indeed prove to be a thriller with Mets winning by one, 74-73. On Sunday Mets travelled to Plymouth and the Raiders took the last undefeated scalp, 81-72.

Despite the defeat Mets still lead the league with Leeds second and NEWI in third place. Crusaders is in seventh place with 2 wins in 5 games.

EBL National League Division 2
NEWI Nets (17, 32, 48) 67
Kent Crusaders (33, 57, 76) 96

Scoring:
Kent: Dimandja 19, Parker 14, Sorensen 14
NETS: Wells 27, Widgekop 22