After a tremendously exciting game at Sport Central, Northumbria University suffered a demoralising 81-82 defeat to Loughborough and failed to finish this season’s opening BUCS fixture with a win.
According to Northumbria University’s Head of Performance Basketball Marc Steutel, the defence faced serious issues and struggled to keep the opponent’s team spirit under control.
“We’ve got to be better defensively,” said Steutel. “We were trying to get one thing right but then the other thing doesn’t go to plan. We didn’t trust each other and the guys weren’t in rhythm. We’ve got to be better at little game management things.
“Credit to Loughborough, they were more together as a group than we were.”
The game was characterised by various ups and downs. After having lost the third quarter by three points, Northumbria University showed its mental strength by fighting back in the last quarter and leading the game for a while.
But, ultimately, the hosts were not able to carry off the victory and Loughborough recovered in a dramatic finish to the game.
“They played that press the whole game and for some reason we threw the ball away twice [in the third quarter] and I don’t know why,” added Steutel.
“They killed us on offensive rebounding. They got second chance shots, second chance shots, second chance shots and that was just [the result of] effort, so at that point tactics don’t really come into it.
“The biggest thing that is in my mind now is toughness. And that comes down to offensive rebounding, it comes down to guarding a little bit and game management - like who is taking the ball out of bounds, the tempo that we are playing at, match-ups and talking to each other.”
Benedict Esser
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