One bridge too far

In the second consecutive year London United has lost the quarterfinal game closing the door to the Final Four tournament.

Our young Londoners started the game against Birmingham Elite very focused with the entire first half an even affair which finished with United trailing only by 2 points and seemingly perfectly positioned to deliver their customary strong performance in the decisive moments of the game. The first signs of crisis appeared in the middle of the third quarter when United started to rely far too much on the mercurial Elias Poorman. United started to lose the battle on both boards with Birmingham scoring freely from under the basket. When the deficit reached double digits at the beginning of the last stanza United has lost their composure committing unnecessary fouls and missing open shots. The only consistent support provided for scoring machine Poorman (41 points) was Edmund Lartey who contributed with 16 points coming off the bench. Unfortunately, that was not enough to combat a very athletic and determined Birmingham team which claimed a 100-81 victory.

Coach Szatkowski was quite positive when he delivered his verdict:” First of all, I must say that it was a real pleasure to work with this group. These guys are true workaholics and we have experienced quite a lot of success this year, for instance winning ABL. Having said that I must say that our game against Birmingham was not our finest moment. We were full of determination and great intensions however we have lost our focus in the fourth quarter. We became too concentrated on peripheral issues instead of going back to basics and trying to stop Birmingham. I’m sure this season can serve as tremendous foundation for us to build something very exciting in the near future.”