Verging on victory

The NSWIS men’s basketball team have continued to come along in leaps and bounds during their tour of China, suffering losses to New Zealand and the USA over the weekend that were much closer than they appeared.

Saturday’s game plan against New Zealand was to lock down on defence, with the team talking at length about what they needed to do on the defensive end to secure their first victory of the tour.

The team was left with one less player after Jordan Barry suffered a hamstring injury, however this did not deter him from making a valuable contributiong to the team by taking up an analysis role with coaches Damian Cotter and Paul Mellett. Despite the increased focus on defence, the NSWIS found themselves lacking on the offensive end to head into the half down 21-37. 

The second half was all NSWIS, however the half time break was too great to hunt down. The NSWIS team won both quarters in the second half to fall valiantly 66-73, by far their most impressive outing since the beginning of the tournament. 

Andrija Dumovic was the standout performer for the game, scoring 14 points for the team and showing excellent strength and vision from the post position. This was supported by another solid performance from both Daniel Trist and Phil Chircu, each scoring 13 points apiece.

Other scorers from the game were Joshua Clifford (11 points), Stuart McEwen (nine points), Andy Allen, Anthony Mustapic and Nathaniel Musters (two points each).