Thursday, November 6, 2008
Eurocup 3/2008 - Olivais 74, Extrugasa 72
It would come down to free throws in the end. With Olivais up 72-71 with 18 seconds left, Olivais (1-2) would get two free throws. Extrugasa (1-2) would get three free throws. Filipa de Freitas of Olivais would make both of her free throws and when Jaklin Zlatanova of Extrugasa came to the free throw line with three seconds left, she'd miss two of three to clinch a 74-72 victory for Olivais.
This throws Group J into confusion. Tarbes leads 3-0 in Eurocup Group J with three other teams tied at 1-2. The boxscore is here.
It was a tight game all the way, and one that home team Olivais wanted to win badly, having lost their first two Eurocup games. Olivais club officials encouraged fans to create a "hostile atmosphere" - the translation comes from Google Translate and it might mean something more like "show the visitors that we're enthusiastic" - for visiting Extrugasa. Only three points separated both teams at halftime, with Olivais leading 38-35. The two teams each scored 14 points in the third, and the game would come down to a battle of the free throws as stated above.
Olivais shot 40 percent from the field, compared with 50 percent shooting from Extrugasa. Most likely, it was because Extrugasa dominated the rebounding, both in offensive terms and in overall terms. Extrugasa, furthermore, only had four more turnovers than Olivais.
How did Olivais win? By perfect free-throw shooting. Olivais went 17 for 17 at the free throw line, compared to 9 for 12 for Extrugasa. Whenever it counted, Olivais shot those clutch free throws, and they never lost their touch even when the game was on the line at the end.
The weird part, however, isn't over. Only four players SCORED for Olivais. Ambrosia Anderson scored 28 points, Filipa de Freitas scored 23 and Aja Parham scored 21. (Ana Fonseca added a measly two points.) Anderson last played with the New York Liberty in 2006. It was a three-player team, and one would think that a full Extrugasa team would be able to stop three players. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.
Extrugasa's Jaklin Zlatanova scored 25 points and seven points for Extrugasa. Sara Gomez scored 17 and Katia Da Silva scored 15 points and 12 rebounds for a double double.
It was a disappointing game for Tamera Young. She only played 20 minutes, and had three personal fouls in the first half. She would only score nine points.
Mandisa Stevenson did not play. She might have made a difference for Extrugasa.
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3 comments:
The phrase "Olivais club officials encouraged fans to create a "hostlie atmosphere" for visiting Extrugasa." is a complete and tremendous lie. I don't know who told you such a horrendous thing but the spanish team was received with courtesy and respect. Their players received applauses when they were presented in the Arena. Is this lie just a lame excuse for a team that played bad basketball and thought that in country that has no tradition in womens basketball they could play with their eyes blinded? No, Olivais played very well defensively, was very fast and used all the opportunities given by the slow spanish players to score. Please correct this!
The phrase "hostile atmosphere" came from a media article translated from Translate Google. I expected English language speakers to get the gist that Olivais meant something along the lines of "let's show the visitors that we're an enthusiastic club, and that we'll keep the arena loud with our support." I can't imagine any club telling its supporters to intimidate the visiting team with outright hostility.
If there is any fault, it belongs to me. The correction has been made in the main article.
Thanks for the correction.
In fact what Olivais officials told people in Coimbra was to go to the Arena to watch a high quality basketball game, because we do not get these teams very often here. All the contrary from what is implied in a word like "hostile".
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