By Ryan Gillham
Durham Wildcats travel to Newcastle to face the Eagles tonight, who currently lie top of the BBL table with a 15-1 record this season.
The Wildcats are at the opposite end of the table, lying at the bottom after only two wins this season bringing their record to 2-15.
Dave Elderkin is looking for a positive reaction after last Sunday’s heavy defeat to the Leicester Riders 68-97, against the Eagles who are looking to hold their place at the top of the table and carry on their winning streak of nine games in the league.
Dave Elderkin told the Newcastle Eagles website: “We had our big moment on TV and it was good to see another good crowd, but we didn’t play as well as we can. We’d improved in recent games, running the Eagles close and beating Jets, but we didn’t perform on Sunday.
“We had a good first quarter and were only two down, but from then on we couldn’t buy a basket. We had a lot more shots than Riders, but their shooting was massively better. The longer that went on, the more difficult it got for us, and I was very impressed with them.
“We need to pick ourselves up to play Newcastle, but I was very disappointed with some of our starting five. We’ll be looking at ways of getting through that and helping them improve and we’re looking forward to another shot on TV when we face Mersey.”
The Wildcats have played very well in all three occasions against the Eagles but Durham will find it hard to stop the Eagles this coming Friday as they boast the highest scoring average in the league of 90.75 points per game and Durham will have to figure out a plan to stop them.
Newcastle Eagles are the top side in the BBL and are a tough side to beat with having several players in their roster that no side cope well with. Charles Smith, Joe Chapman and Paul Gause are just three of the players that are on fine form at the moment but also have players such as Andrew Thompson, Darius Defoe, Andrew Bridge and player/coach Fabulous Flournoy.
Durham will be looking for big man Mario Flaherty to put in another big performance in against the Eagles and they will be also looking for other starting five members; Ralph Bucci, Dj Glavan, Mike Capocci and Paul Elderkin to really step up the pace after a poor outing in the last game.
The game will be played this Friday 17th February, tip-off 7:30pm at Sports Central. For more information on how to get there or for tickets go to the Newcastle Eagles website www.newcastle-eagles.com