Varsity Men's Basketball: last-minute win for UCL
Photography by Anna Vall Navés
KCL 69 – 70 UCL. UCL finds its footing in the second half and wins by one point after a strong start from King’s.
On Sunday 8th March at UEL’s Sportsdock in East London, the UCL Men’s Basketball team faced off against King’s in a very close game. The old rivalry between the teams was spurred on by a noisy fan base which – particularly on KCL’s side – proved itself musically accomplished, carrying with it an impressive assortment of instruments. Perhaps hitting a more jarring note for King’s, UCL fans urged their team on with chants including, but not limited to, “KCL, second choice”.
King’s opened up the match with two three-pointers, clearly dominating and setting the tone for the rest of the first quarter. With KCL’s number 16 Pastor leading the offensive and with excellent shooting from the team on the whole, UCL found itself lagging behind on the scoreboard. By the end of the quarter, UCL was losing 26-16.
Speaking to Pi News, UCL’s coach John Moore commented: “King’s shot very well in the first half – definitely better than I’ve seen them shoot for a very long time – and we weren’t shooting particularly well. But later on in the match, as normal, my team woke up and made it a very close game.”
In the following minutes, UCL’s team indeed woke up, scoring much more consistently and making many of its free throws – all in spite of the trumpet player in KCL’s bleachers. Sam Wilson, number 9 on UCL’s team, proved to be a key player in propping up the team. And while not quite managing to get ahead of King’s, the first half closed with the score reading 40-39.
During halftime, Imane, a UCL supporter, reflected: “It definitely wasn’t the best start, but we’ve been doing better in the second quarter. Regardless, I’m very proud of them and happy to be here.” Sitting next to her, Martina agreed, jokingly adding: “Why don’t we get to have trumpets too? This sucks.”
Intense grappling by both teams to end up on top characterised the second half of the match. The third quarter saw many fouls on both sides and a lull in the scoreboard, with UCL closely chasing King’s until the very end, when KCL got ahead by 57-51.
The game sped up for UCL in the final quarter, as number 11 Papaioannou quickly helped the team catch up once again and brought the score to 59-57. UCL had many great steals and played well defensively, despite consistently staying one or two points behind King’s.
This all changed in the last minute of the game when Wilson levelled the score and another lay-up put UCL in the lead with a score of 68-70. The last seconds of the match were nerve-wracking for the crowd, with the game constantly pausing and with a foul at 0.9 seconds remaining giving KCL the opportunity to win.
KCL’s Pastor needed to make both free throws to match UCL, but was only able to make one. UCL’s supporters were quick to begin celebrating what initially seemed an unlikely victory, while KCL’s fan base was disillusioned with its last-minute defeat.
Reflecting after UCL’s victory, Moore emphasised that games against King’s always tend to be closely matched: “All of the games that we play against King’s are always very like that: they’re very intense. Fortunately for UCL, we’ve come out the winners about 90% of the time, but it doesn’t surprise me that this one turned out to be a one-point game.”
When asked who he would nominate as his player of the match, Moore struggled to decide: “Tough one really, because they all did bits and pieces... But I would say two guys. I’d say Jay Papaioannou and Sam Wilson offensively kept us in the game in the last quarter and made all the difference.”