Saturday, February 28, 2009

LFB (Spain) 21/2008 - Ibiza 88, Perfumerias 87 (OT)




Anke de Mondt has the ball for Perfumerias.

The bizarre part of being a professional player is that one season someone who is your most trusted teammate might be your most dangerous opponent in the following season. WNBA pro ball players have this happen at least once a year - rosters and relationships are shuffled every off-season in Europe.

In 2008, Sancho Lyttle and Michelle Snow were teammates on the Houston Comets. Next year, they'll be teammates on the Atlanta Dream. However, in the off-season, Sancho Lyttle represents Ibiza (11-10) and Michelle Snow represents Perfumerias (17-4). Perfumerias might have made it to the quarterfinals of Euroleague, but at home Ibiza treated Perfumerias to an 88-87 overtime loss in Liga Feminina play.

The box score is here.

Iziba took a 22-17 lead after the first quarter, and expanded their lead to 42-35 at halftime. But Perfumerias is one of the best teams in the Spanish League, and they scored 25 points in the third quarter to take a 70-68 lead. Down 73-66, Ibiza scored six points with slightly more than a minute remaining, and a shot by Shannon Johnson with 0.6 seconds left sent the game into overtime., and managed to score one more point than the visitors in the five minutes of overtime.

Ibiza hit 47 percent of its field goal attempts, and hit 56 percent from inside the 3-point line. Perfumerias took 73 shots and only hit 44 percent. Perfumerias had the edge in rebounding, holding Ibiza to just five offensive rebounds. Both teams did a great job in maintaining possession of the ball, each side only having 11 turnovers.

Perfumerias would only hit 54 percent of its free throws. They only scored two free throws less than Ibiza, but that turned out to be the difference.

Ibiza

Sancho Lyttle: 28 points, 14 rebounds. She was clearly the player of the game.
Silvia Morales Martin: 25 points, 7 rebounds, 4 turnovers.
Shannon Johnson: 21 points, 5 assists, fouled out.

Perfumerias

Michelle Snow: 20 points, 13 rebounds. She was 9-for-17. Fouled out.
Gunta Basko: 15 points, 6 rebounds.
Petra Stampalija: 17 points, 12 rebounds. The third of three double-doubles in the game.

Next week, these teams will meet again during the Copa de la Reina - the "Queen's Cup" - in a quarterfinals game. Ros Casares will also be playing in the Copa.

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