By Ryan Gillham
Durham Wildcats coach Dave Elderkin was frustrated with his side’s showing in front of the Sky Sports cameras, as the Wildcats were soundly beaten by Leicester Riders.
With the TV cameras visiting Newton Aycliffe Leisure Centre for the first time everything was set in place for the game to be a real match up against the high-flying Riders.
A huge crowd of 580 came out in force to show their support towards to the side, but Leicester Riders showed their experience and ran out comfortable winners, 97-69.
Elderkin said: “Hats off to the Leicester Riders who took advantage of our disappointing display. I was disappointed with our defence today, conceding too many points along the way and very disappointed with the starting five with poor points scoring.
“Two of our best players in Mike Capocci and Ralph Bucci scored seven points between them, which is not good enough, and only scoring 68 points all game doesn’t give us a chance of winning.”
Wildcats guard DJ Glavan believes the franchise need to move on from the defeat and start to focus on Friday’s trip to league-leaders Newcastle Eagles.
“It was a really tough game but we have to try bounce back against a strong Eagles side on Friday,” said the American playmaker.
“We need to come away from this game, watch the video back and look at what went wrong and work on it. It was a disappointing loss but we are all just looking towards the next game.”
The result leaves Wildcats rooted at the bottom of the table with two wins from their 17 games, in their first-ever BBL campaign.
Both teams showed their intent at the start by putting on their strongest starting fives right from the off. The first quarter stayed very tight as both sides struggled finding their form with little points showing on the score board.
Within the first four minutes of the game beginning, the Wildcats found themselves in foul trouble with the Riders seeing many trips to the free throw line, extending their lead by six points but after a few changes from Durham, they pulled back to finish the quarter 18-20 down with a last second dunk disallowed for the Wildcats as the buzzer had already sounded.
Motivational words from the Leicester bench gave the Riders a boost which showed on the court as they stepped up the pace and piled the pressure on the Wildcats, which the hosts struggled to cope with.
The gap kept increasing by as much as 15 points in the second quarter after mistakes began to show with Wildcats turning the ball over six times and the Riders taking advantage.
Leicester boasts one of the best defence’s in the league and it showed as the Wildcats found it hard to put points on the board withDurham’s big named players not making an impact. Second quarter finished 37-49 in favour of the Riders.
In the third quarter frustration seemed to show from the Wildcats as they once again entered foul trouble as they made five fouls within the first three minutes. Riders once again took advantage of the situation stretching the deficit to 26 points.
Head coach Elderkin made four changes to the team with the starting five back on the court as the Wildcats increased the intensity, narrowing the gap to 20 points at the end of the third.
After a high intense finish to the third from the Wildcats, they found themselves in foul trouble again after making unnecessary fouls early on in the final quarter.
The visitors took advantage and stretched the lead to 33-points, though Durham managed to reduce the deficit to 28 by the buzzer.
Although the Wildcats were well beaten, the MVP goes to Mario Flaherty with 22 points and 12 rebounds to his name.
■ The half-time entertainment was performed by local dance school KDANZ, who put on a fantastic show for the cameras and the fans. KDANZ use all different types of dance from breaking dancing to cheerleading. Anyone interested in joining KDANZ contact Kay on 07900 365892.