Match Report Australia V Kazakhstan 22/7/13 (4th game of U21 Asian Championship)
After 3 straight victories in the first pool stage of this seasons Asian Championships, the standings ladder had tightened up leading into our Aussie Under 21s game against Kazakhstan.
Wins and point margins had become extremely important with Australia, Indonesia and Iran all unbeaten and holding the top 3 positions and with these teams to play each other and also Kazakhstan, who were in 4th spot, during the next 3 weeks.
Australias task tonight at GM Koopasaurus’s “Stronghold” arena was to win big and try to extend their “one points difference margin” from 2nd on the ladder Indonesia who tonight were drawn to play 3rd placed Iran.
Kazakhstan who had had only one win from 3 games was clinging to the 4th and final qualification spot in the pool, and as their last 2 games after tonight were to be played against the higher ranked Iran and Indonesian teams there was concern in the offsite forum that they might target us with a crunch time in a desperate bid to sneak into the next stage of this tournament.
The Wombat King had during the weekend leading into tonights game, expressed his pride in his squad of 14 players who all had either strong or Proficient game shape, which on paper appeared to be a huge advantage against the 60th ranked Kazakhstan team who only had 8 of their 18 players in strong or proficient game shapes.
Finished their warm ups the Wombat King sprung the first surprise of the night by starting Sercombe (Combover) at PG, Bath Water (Barth) at SG and the Hessian Bag (Sacks) at SF.
The Duke won the tip off and it didn’t take long for the Combover to get a great pass off to the Hessian bag to enable the first points to be scored.
Kazakhstan were playing a possession style game and soon found Nil Zuev, their star shooting guard, in space who hit a 3 despite the best defensive efforts of the Hessian Bag.
Sacks (Hessian Bag) had widely been criticized last week for his poor shooting, certainly begun to make amends hitting his first 3 shots before missing a shot with 10 seconds left in the quarter.
Quarter time and despite restricting Zuev to 2 out of 12 for the quarter the Australians trailed the Kazakhstans 13 to 12 in a low scoring quarter
In the second and Zuev was everywhere, jumping between PG, SG and SF positions and quickly extended his teams lead with a couple of free throws after drawing a 3rd foul on the Hessian Bag.
3 minutes in and Ted brought the crowd to their feet when he hit a huge 3 pointer to put the Aussies back in front.
The Wombat King who at this stage was quite concerned about his teams low scoring was getting regular updates on the Iran v Indonesia game which was being played around the corner at the Crockers home court.
Six minutes in and the scores were tied on 27 points and it was noticeable that the Bath Water had gone stagnant with his shooting having missed all 6 of his attempts, 4 of which had been taken outside the arc
2 minutes left in the quarter and the crowd was again brought to its feet, this time by Possum Petes other contribution to the team, the Chico Roll showing that like Ted he could also hit a 3 pointer.
Inspired by the Chico, Bath Water, Polar Bear, Tic Tac all quickly hit shots in quick succession which saw Australia get the first real break on the Kazakhstans and go to half time with a 46 to 36 lead.
Ted and the Duke had begun to assert their dominance with 16 rebounds with 18 points between them, whilst for the Kazakhstans Zuev had managed to jack up 21 shots for the half to be leading scorer with 20 points and he was also at this stage his teams leading rebounder with 5.
Last edited by Sid Vicious at 7/22/2013 10:26:30 AM