Lions coach and point guard look to bounce back
Mark Clark couldn’t hide his disappointment after his London Lions side lost 68-61 against Rutronik Stars Keltern in their final EuroCup Women group stage game, on Wednesday.
“Congratulation are due to Keltern, who arrived here with only eight players, they were tough in Germany and they played with the sane toughness tonight” Clark said. “We said in the locker room that every one of their eight in a high-level player and we went with only nine tonight, so I don’t think that’s the reason for out loss. They just did a better job, especially down the fourth period.
“We tried to buld on last Wednesday, but we had the worst week of practice this season and it wasn’t a great game in Cardiff at the weekend. Our field goal percentage simply wasn’t good enough to win. It wasn’t about them taking us out of our rhythm, we were two feet from the basket and had to make the shot on too many occasions. We got a play at the end that could have won the game, we just happened to miss an easy bucket. We just missed too many shots in a relatively low scoring game.”
Clark still believes that Lions have made progress in their first season of European competition: “Our first objective was to get into the regular season, and anyone can win any game on any given day in this group. Some of our better performances have been on the road this season, so we know what we have to do.”
Point guard Kennedy Leonard was also upset with the loss for a Lions team that were again without GB star Jo Leedham :
“I think it starts with out mindset, we started slow, they would core and we’d score, it was never our game, it felt we were trying to take if from them the whole game” she said.
With the international break meaning Lions have a fortnight off, Leonard believes it can work in Lions’ favour: “We’ve been together almost every day but any time you can get a break can be good. Half the team will be together with the national team. Hopefully we’ll get jo back and look to get two wins on the road.
“The fact we’ve made it here and got here is something we can be excited about. Our win last week didn’t make us a great team and a loss tonight doesn’t make us a bad team. Hopefully it’ll make us better in practice, Jo will come back and we’ll get those two wins.”
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