Sunday, October 19, 2008

TBBL 1/2008 - Samsun 63, Galatsaray 49



Turkish basketball, get ready. There's a new girl in town and she's looking to crack a few heads. Samsun (1-0) took it to last year's TBBL finalists Galatsaray (0-1) by a score of 63-49 at home.

Samsun got of to a fast start, leading 20-6 at the end of the first quarter and leading by as much as 17 points (23-6) in the second quarter, and part of that fast start was Dream center Alison Bales. The rest of the game was a see-saw affair, with Galatsaray closing the score to 31-21 at the half. Seimone Augustus turned on the force for Galatsaray in the third quarter to help the visitors close to 47-43 by the end of the third quarter, but Samsun outscored Galatsaray 16-6 in the final ten minutes for their first win of the year.

The key was that Samsun was hitting their shots and Galatsaray was not. Samsun outshot Galatsaray 48 percent to 30 percent. Galatsaray was outrebounded and made more turnovers, and there was no where that Galatsaray could squeeze back against Samsun.

Julie McBride led Samusn with 24 points, despite turning the ball over eight times. McBride played briefly for the Chicago Sky and is now playing her third year in Turkey. Alison Bales followed with 14 points and eight rebounds. Erlana Larkins, a rookie for the New York Liberty at forward this year, contribued eight points and nine rebounds.

Seimone Augustus (Minnesota Lynx) led Galatsaray with 17 points. Isil Alben scored nine points, and Marina Kress (a Belorussian player) scored seven.

The boxscore is here. Be warned, however, that the minutes played appeared to be way off in some cases. Pictures will come when I can find them.

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2 comments:

Rebecca said...

O HAI DERE ERLANA.

No, seriously, the Liberty hadn't clued in on where she was the last time they posted an article. I knew there was a reason I kept popping over here.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for posting this information--in English. I look forward to more news. Susan