Somto Managor scored 11 points and 2 rebounds, the lone bright spot with double digits for the Port Harcourt side as Hoopers lost just their second game of the 2016/2017 Kwese Premier Basketball League Season.
The KingsMen started the game in a lackadaisical manner, lacking patience on the ball from the onset, missing point blank layups with multiple careless passes equating to 31 turnovers committed by the team.
Falcons exploited defensive errors by the away side and the only time there were lead changes was early in the first quarter.
The first quarter however ended with Hoopers trailing with as much as 13 points (25-12). A 49-22 second half score saw a 22-point half time deficit.
It got worse from there with Falcons adding 37 points in the third while Hoopers could only score 16 points thereby trailing by 48 points going into the final quarter in what eventually became a 36-point rout.
The damage had already been done by the new conference leaders despite Hoopers winning the last quarter (11-19).
The Port Harcourt side was able to limit the Falcons to a 0-6 run with less than two minutes left to play. And the only three point shot by the team came in the last few minutes of the last quarter by Victor Atisele. The only 3 point shot in 12 attempts.
Kwara Falcons head coach Adewunmi admitted after the emphatic victory that his side exploited the lapses seen in Rivers Hoopers.
“We came to Port Harcourt and we lost by 6 points that means they are a good team. Then how will this same good team lose by 25 points today,” Aderemi questioned.
“The Port Harcourt team lost to fatigue there is no way you will play such a game and you go on a 12 hour trip and play a very good team its going to be very difficult. Towards the fourth quarter, they played very well but because they were fatigued they couldn’t do much. I capitalised on the first to third quarter of the game,” he opined.
In his response, Hoopers coach dismissed the notion that his team lost due to fatigue.
“I don’t think so. Kwara Falcons came to Port Harcourt, they traveled in a worse condition than us and they still put up a good performance. I won’t attribute it to fatigue. I think we just played terribly. We could not string two or three passes together, we could not run two offences back to back perfectly.
“You can not win basketball with that amount of mistakes. We will go back to our drawing board because our focus now is on our next game against Oluyole Warriors in Ibadan,” said a furious Odaudu.
Hoopers will now look to banish the effect of the debilitating loss, like they did after their Match week one loss in Lagos, when they travel to Ibadan tomorrow to engage Oluyole Warriors on Saturday.
