LFB 14/2008 - Celta 61, Extrugasa 60

Extrugasa (2-12) had to wait a week before the debut of Iziane Castro Marques. You would think that that the Spanish media would be all over their match with Celta (8-7), but despite a week of rest, Extrugasa fell short in a 61-60 loss on the road.

The boxscore is here.

I can't find any information about this very close game. The quarter-by-quarter boxscore is very interesting, to say the least. Celta took an 18-13 lead after the first quarter, but the second quarter was a time warp for both teams. Celta was held to six points in the second quarter, and halftime ended with a 25-24 Extrugasa lead. In the third quarter, Extrugasa scored 20 points, the most points that had been scored by either team in a quarter, and Extrugas took a 45-37 lead into the final quarter.

Doesn't this sound like an Extrugasa win? No? Well, you must have figured out that Celta came back to beat Extrugasa by one point. I'm sure there's a spectacular story about Extrugasa's last-second comeback, but you won't even find it on the feb.es website.

Guess we have to go to the box score. Celta put nine players on the floor. Eight scored. Extrugasa put eight players on the floor. Seven scored.

What happened to Mandisa Stevenson? Extrugasa is already planning on throwing her through the club's revolving door. What happened to Tara Tuukkanen? She's "with her selection", whatever that means.

This left fifteen players, more or less, for both teams. Celta shot 41 percent from the field to Extrugasa's 37 percent. Both teams were almost equal in offensive rebounding. Extrugasa had only 11 turnovers for the game, which helped them keep up with Celta.

Extrugasa would be sent to the free throw line by Celta 22 times - and only hit 11 of them. If Extrugasa were an American college team, they'd be washing their own practice gear. Celta has no reason to laugh - they were 6-of-18 from the free thow line, the worst free throw shooting I've ever seen, only 33 percent. And despite shooting 33 percent from the line, Celta still won.

Leading for Celta were Agne Ciudariene with 17 points and eight rebounds, and Maja Miljovic with 12 points. For Extrugasa, four players scored in double figures, led by Iziane Castro Marques with 16 points and four steals. Unfortunately, this was gained by 6-for-17 shooting, a horrible performance where she hit 1 of 5 free thows. Elisha Turek would make her debut with 11 points and 15 rebounds - maybe Turek will hang around and Jlakin Zlatanova would score 13 points.

There probably won't be any pictures. I expect the FEB wants Extrugasa to play under an assumed name.

P. S.: Finally! Some information from p_d_swanson from RebKell about the finish: "Maja Miljovic's free throw with four seconds left capped an 11-2 finish as Celta edged Extrugasa." Well, then.