NOTHING less than a convincing win over Wales will suffice at the Pleasance Sports Hall, Edinburgh University, tonight (7.00pm) after Scotland stuttered to a 58-49 success against Malta in their opening game of the Activcity Euro C Basketball Championship last night.
Ahead 19-7 after the first quarter and apparently in cruise control, Iain Maclean's men hit the buffers in the second quarter and failed to score for almost seven minutes, eventually going into the interval only 27-17 up.
Though they did stretch t
heir lead again in the third quarter to 48-31, the host nation appeared to have no shape or composure in the final 10 minutes, which they lost 18-10.
"We played like a national league team," said coach Maclean, and, considering the current state of the Scottish club game, that is indeed a damning indictment.
"It's not a great start – we made a lot of basic errors – we needed to step up and discipline ourselves but we weren't sharp and didn't execute.
"We were off the pace. They are well capable of playing better than that. But if they've blown the cobwebs away then tomorrow is another day."
In fairness, the starting five, once Laurie Costello took on the ball-handling duties, looked promising and a particular bright spot for Scotland was the performance of St Mirren forward Nic Collins, one of seven new caps in the side, who had 16 points and seven rebounds in a lively 27-minutes plus debut.
Skipper Gareth Murray (Scottish Rocks) added 13 points and six rebounds in nearly 23 minutes and new caps Ike Attah (Teesside Mohawks) and Simon Flockhart (Edinburgh Kings) each had six points.
Coach Maclean started with new cap Grant Gibson (East Lothian Buccaneers) at point, Edinburgh Kings' Costello at off guard, Gareth Murray at small forward, Collins at power forward and Italy-based Roni Gordon, as predicted in these columns, at centre.
All 12 players had reasonable court time, though the team's youngster, the 19-year-old Falkirk Fury player Daniel Donnelly, only played the last five minutes.
Malta's vociferous Italian coach Bruno Dipietrantonio was understandably upbeat afterwards: "We were very static at the start. We were afraid of Scotland for the first 10 minutes but, in the second quarter, we played very good defence and then we began to believe in ourselves.
"Scotland are a very good team and I hope we play them again in the final on Sunday."
On the basis of the other results yesterday, that is an unlikely but not impossible outcome of this week's tournament.
Perhaps the 17-year-old 7ft 4in giant Samuel Deguara, who played 13 minutes for five points and three rebounds, can do better but he looked very clumsy in yesterday's outing.
Winning every quarter, Andorra beat a very ordinary Wales 78-52 in the opening game yesterday. Gibraltar, who have former Kings point guard Alan Perez as their team manager, shocked Azerbaijan in the first quarter, taking a 7-0 lead and staying close till half-time before going down 96-61 behind a barrage of three-pointers from the former Soviet republic, whose average was an incredible 60 per cent.
Another former Eastern bloc country, Moldova, who Scotland have never played, recovered from 26-16 down after the first quarter to beat San Marino 85-64, and they, too, can shoot.
The full article contains 570 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
