TBBL 2/2009 - Fenerbahce 71, Mersin 61

Olympia Scott tries to stop the Yellow Navy.

It just seems to go back and forth between Fenerbahce (2-0), the winner of last year's TBBL championship, and Mersin (1-1), the runner up last year and winner of the President's Cup game against Fenerbahce this year. This time, the defending champions managed to hold off Mersin, winning 71-61 at home.

The box score is here. A write-up of the game is here.

Fenerbahce scored the first few points, but Mersin came back to close to within 11-9. However, the "Yellow Navy" of Fenerbahce started to pull away, leading 18-11 after ten minutes and 27-17 in the second quarter. I believe at one point Fenerbahce led by 15 at one point in the second but they took a 38-28 halftime lead.

Barbara Turner played well, but Ivory Latta did not. Both could only watch as Fenerbahce extended the lead to 15 again and with five minutes to go, the lead was still at 15 for Fenerbahce.

A look at the Four Factors of the game:

Field goal percentage: Fenerbahce 46 percent, Mersin 38 percent. Fenerbahce was 5-for-11 from 3-point range, Mersin was 2-fo-10.
Turnovers: Fenerbahce 13, Mersin 16 - advantage to Fenerbahce again.
Offensive rebound percentage: Mersin 28 percent, Fenerbahce 25 percent. About even. Tammy Sutton-Brown led both teams in offensive rebounds with three.
Free throws: Mersin 19-for-23, Fenerbahce 10-for-14. It could have been a lot worse for Mersin.

The individual performances:

Fenerbahce

Tammy Sutton-Brown: 20 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists. 9-for-15 shooting for the Indiana Fever player.
Nicole Powell: 17 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists for the Sacramento Monarchs player.
Nevriye Yilmaz: 12 points, 6 rebounds.
Kristen Nevlin: 12 points and 6 rebounds for the Stanford graduate. (Known as "Newlin" when playing for Stanford.)
Penny Taylor: 2 points on 0-for-5 shooting. Played 16 minutes.
Matee Ajavon: One point in eight minutes of play.

Mersin

Olympia Scott: 17 points, 5 rebounds.
Barbara Turner: 16 points, 4 rebounds, 4 turnovers.
Erlana Larkins: 11 points, 7 rebounds.
Ivory Latta: 10 points on 1-for-8 shooting. (Latta was 8-for-8 at the free throw line.) She had six of Mersin's 16 turnovers.